The Jews in Italy: Their Contribution to the Development and Diffusion of Jewish Heritage 9781644690260

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THE JEWS IN ITALY Their Contribution to the Development and Diffusion of Jewish Heritage

Jewish Latin American Studies Series Editor: Darrell B. Lockhart (University of Nevada, Reno)

THE JEWS IN ITALY Their Contribution to the Development and Diffusion of Jewish Heritage Edited by Yaron

Harel and Mauro Perani

Boston 2019

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Harel, Yaron, editor. | Perani, Mauro, editor. Title: The Jews in Italy: their contribution to the development and diffusion of Jewish heritage / edited by Yaron Harel and Mauro Perani. Description: Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2019. | “In September 2011, a major congress was convened at the Bologna University Department of Cultural Heritage … All twenty-two articles in the current volume are based on lectures given at the conference”--Preface. Identifiers: LCCN 2019004279 (print) | LCCN 2019006077 (ebook) | ISBN 9781644690260 (ebook) | ISBN 9781644690253 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Jews--Italy--History--Congresses. Classification: LCC DS135.I8 (ebook) | LCC DS135.I8 J47 2019 (print) | DDC 945/.04924--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019004279 Copyright © 2019 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved. ISBN 978-1-64469-025-3 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-64469-026-0 (ebook) Book design by PHi Business Solutions Limited. Cover design by Ivan Grave. Cover illustration: text from a bifolio of Talmud Yerushalmi, Bava Qamma, copied in Apulia, southern Italy, during the eleventh century, and reused as bookbinding in the Bologna State Archive, Hebr. Frag. 564. Published by Academic Studies Press 1577 Beacon Street Brookline, MA, 02446, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

Contents

Prefaceviii PART ONE The Roman Period 1 Roman Attitudes to Jews and Judaism in the First Century BCE: Between Hellenistic Traditions and Local Realities Miriam Ben Zeev PART TWO The Middle Ages and The Renaissance

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2 The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered at the Bologna University Library: Codicological, Textual, and Paleographic Features of an Ancient Eastern Tradition  16 Mauro Perani 3 Palestinian and Babylonian Traditions in Italy at the Outset of the Middle Ages: The Yerushalmi in the Writings of R. Isaiah di Trani (the Rid)  64 Yaron Silverstein 4 Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram: An Adaptation of Modistic Concepts by a Hebrew Grammarian of the Renaissance  90 Dror Ben-Arié 5 The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of Giordano Ruffo’s De medicina equorum and Its Language 107 Michael Ryzhik 6 Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher 127 Carmela Saranga

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  7 Italian Jewry and Kabbalistic Rites Moshe Hallamish   8 Ladino Translations from Italy: The Bible, Pirke Avot, the Passover Haggadah, and the Siddur  Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald   9 The Jews of France and Italy during the Later Middle Ages and the Renaissance Shimon Schwarzfuchs 10 Torah and Nature in the Writings of Some Italian Jewish Thinkers of the Renaissance Miguel Antonio Beltrán Munar 11 Prenuptial Agreements in Ketubot from Italy Yoel Shilo PART THREE The Modern Period 

161 169 188 199 214

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12 Jewish Ashkenazi Gastronomy in Northern Italy in the Early Modern Period: The Testimony of the Book Mitzvot Hanashim228 Zahava Weishouse 13 The Depiction of Jesus’s Circumcision and Presentation in the Temple in Early Modern Paintings in Venice: Some Questions on Jesus’s Identity  248 Maria Portmann 14 Freemasonry and Saint-Simonism as Carriers of Enlightenment Values in David Levi’s Weltanschauung 268 Alessandro Grazi 15 The Unique Characteristics of Dybbuk Exorcisms in Rabbinic Documents from Eighteenth-Century Italy  289 Yaniv Goldberg 16 Rabbinic Ties between Italy and Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century  312 Leah Bornstein-Makovetsky PART FOUR The Contemporary Period  17 Jewish Solidarity: The Actions and Support of the Union of Italian Israelite Communities for the Jews of Libya and Ethiopia in the 1930s  Yitzhak Mualem

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18 The Dispute between Italy and France in Tunisia: The Role of Language and the Position of Italian Jewry  344 Filippo Petrucci 19 Jews as Promoters of Italian Civilization in Libya  359 Rachel Simon 20 The Relations of the Holy See with the Jewish People after the 1993 Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel: Divergence between the Interreligious Dialogue with the Jews of Rome and the Diplomatic Dialogue with Israel  371 Eliav Taub 21 Primo Levi: Chemist/Writer, Italian/Jew  388 Smadar Shiffman 22 Jewish Educational Proposals in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Florence 403 Silvia Guetta Index417

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F

rom the 1960s on, enormous interest developed in the field of studies and research on Italian Jewry. The Jewish sources related to the history and culture of the Italian Jews were researched quite thoroughly, and new light was shed on the important Jewish heritage that flourished in southern Italy in the first millennium.1 However, few works dealt with the influence and legacy of Italian Jewry in the Jewish world. Even if the Italian Jews never reached large numbers during their more than two millennia presence on the Italian Peninsula—always numbering between 40,000–50,000 souls—their role in creating and diffusing Jewish heritage and culture was nevertheless of great importance, which, considering their small numbers, was often incomprehensible. The aim of this volume is to examine additional aspects of Jewish life in Italy, and to illuminate the contribution of Italian Jewry to the development and diffusion of Jewish heritage beyond the Italian boundaries. In September 2011, a major congress was convened at the Bologna University Department of Cultural Heritage, seated at the Ravenna Campus, under the title: “The Jews in Italy: Their Contribution to the Development and Diffusion of Jewish Heritage.” This conference was jointly organized and sponsored by the Dahan Center of Bar-Ilan University and the Italian Association for the Study of Judaism (AISG). The conference was cochaired by Prof. Mauro Perani, president of the AISG, and Prof. Yaron Harel, chairman of the academic committee of the Dahan Center. Around one hundred scholars from ten countries presented papers on a wide variety of topics. All twenty-two articles in the 1 Mauro Perani wrote a detailed account of the state of Jewish studies in Italy in his article, “Jewish Studies in the Italian Academic World,” Jewish Studies and the European Academic World, ed. Albert Van Der Heide & Irene E. Zwiep, Plenary Lectures at the 7th Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) (Amsterdam, July 2002); Collection de la Revue des Etudes juives, ed. Simon C. Mimouni & Gérard Nahon (Paris–Louvain: Peeters, 2005), 67–116.

Preface

current volume are based on lectures given at the conference. All are original works of scholarship, and all were accepted for publication only after rigorous peer review. Geographically, the articles range from Italy to the Ottoman Empire (the Balkans and Aleppo) in the east, to France and Germany in the northwest. They also encompass the Middle East, including Israel, and North and East Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Ethiopia). Chronologically, articles begin with the Roman period, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance until modern times. In this collection, the reader will find a wide range of subjects reflecting various scholarly perspectives such as history (Miriam Ben Zeev, Shimon Schwarzfuchs, Alessandro Grazi, Leah Bornstein-Makovetsky, Yitzhak Mualem); Christian-Jewish relations (Eliav Taub); halakhah (Yoel Shilo); Kabbalah (Moshe Hallamish); commentary on the Bible and Talmud (Mauro Perani, Yaron Silverstein); language, grammar, and translation (Dror Ben-Arié, Michael Ryzhik, Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, Filippo Petrucci); literature (Carmela Saranga, Smadar Shiffman); philosophy (Miguel Antonio Beltrán Munar); gastronomy (Zahava Weishouse); art (Maria Portmann); culture (Rachel Simon); folklore (Yaniv Goldberg); and education (Silvia Guetta). Note that while the title of each article reflects its major theme, many articles relate to more than one issue. This volume is being published in the midst of a process of historic rapprochement and a reconciliation of sorts between Italy and its Jews. In modern times, the integration of the Jews with the non-Jewish population has been great—and no less profound in the area of personal relationships. Jews and Christians in Italy have always lived side by side as an integrated people. Divisions and prohibitions of relationships were generally called for and imposed by the authorities. As citizens with full rights, the Italian Jews identified themselves with the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed in 1861. Participating in great numbers as fighters—as compared to non-Jewish Italians—and in the role of military leaders in World War I, they never anticipated the racist edicts that were issued against them in 1938. With the racist laws of 1938, all Jewish teachers and students in Italian schools, from kindergarten to university, were suddenly and brutally expelled. On the eightieth anniversary, the Italian government wishes to counter that sad event with a symbolic gesture. There is a project promoted by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) to set up a master’s degree in Jewish studies. For several years, with the direct funding of the ministry, MIUR has sponsored a doctorate in Jewish studies at the abovementioned Ravenna Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Bologna. This program is

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coordinated by Prof. Mauro Perani in co-tutelage with Prof. Judith Schlanger, the French coordinator, and includes recognition of the double ­Diploma of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. Following this three years’ doctorate course in Jewish studies, we hope to establish an MA course in Jewish studies, which then will be linked to the existing PhD program, thus achieving, for the first time in Italy, a complete cursus studiorum in Hebrew studies. This by no means rectifies the evils done to the Jews by Fascist persecution from 1938 until the end of World War II, but it is certainly a small token recognizing the importance of Jewish culture in Italy and the Western and Jewish worlds. Now that the volume is finally ready for publication, we would like to extend our thanks and appreciation to Dr. Shimon Ohayon of the Dahan Center, for his support and encouragement over the years. Above all, we would like to thank Mrs. Ora Kobelkowsky, who, for more than six years, ably and painstakingly oversaw the editing of the articles. She was the connecting link between the contributors to this volume and us, and did it so graciously. We hope that the contents of this volume will be of interest to both scholars and laypeople who care about Jewish life in Italy, and its contribution to the Jewish world in general. Prof. Mauro Perani, Italy Prof. Yaron Harel, Israel

Part One The Roman Period CHAPTER 1

Roman Attitudes to Jews and Judaism in the First Century BCE: Between Hellenistic Traditions and Local Realities* MIRIAM BEN ZEEV

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ven before the Roman conquest of Greece, Greek culture had a significant impact on Roman life. The more so after the political subjugation, when the Greek influence came to affect almost every aspect of Roman life, thought and learning, including philosophy, oratory, science, art, religion, morals and also manners and dress. “Greekness,” however, acquired different meanings for different people in different situations,1 and Greek models were often reinterpreted

* My warmest thanks to the Interlibrary Loan Office of the Ben Gurion University, Beersheva, and to its head, Mrs. Herta Yankovich, for their helpful assistance. This article has also been published in “Let the Wise Listen and Add to Their Learning” (Prov. 1:5): Festschrift for Günter Stemberger on the Occasion of His 75th Birthday, ed. Constanza Cordoni and Gerhard Langer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016), 111–25. 1 Albert Henrichs, “Graecia Capta: Roman Views of Greek Culture,” in Greece in Rome: Influence, Integration, Resistance, ed. Christopher P. Jones and Charles Segal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955), 243–61.

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according to local realities, needs, and insights.2 An imitation of a literary forebear is not simply a reproduction but also a transformation.3 The final products, therefore, were often very different from the original ones.4 In the domain of painting, for example, the architectural location of Greek paintings in new ensembles automatically invited their reinterpretation, and the same may be said about sculpture. The choice to repeat a source image was as a deliberate one, but guided by Roman concerns. These might include, for example, a concern for decorum, political effectiveness, and the nature of the intended Roman context. “Rather than see these sculptures merely as informants on what has been lost of Greek culture’s artistic heritage,” Gazda suggests, “we should appreciate them as selective and informed determinants of the artistic legacy of Greece in Rome.”5 The Romans kept their own agenda according to their own social, political, and intellectual values. Even when they appropriated unmistakably Greek forms, they often used them for different purposes, reaching results only superficially close to, but essentially different from, those of their original Greek models. The question may be addressed, whether these conclusions apply also to other areas, and, specifically, in our case, whether and in which measure the views found in the Hellenistic literature influenced Romans’ attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. The starting point is the first century BCE. In spite of the fact that the Jewish presence at Rome may date back as early as the second century BCE,6 no mention of it is found in Latin literature until a century later. Jews 2 On the ambiguous use of the Trojan myth made at Rome, for example, see Erich S. Gruen, “Cultural Fictions and Cultural Identity,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 123 (1993): 4–9; and John Scheid, “Graeco Ritu: A Typically Roman Way of Honoring the Gods,” in Greece in Rome: Influence, Integration, Resistance, ed. Christopher P. Jones and Charles Segal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 30–1. 3 Tim Whitmarsh, Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 27. 4 See Gisella Striker, “Cicero and Greek Philosophy,” in Greece in Rome: Influence, Integration, Resistance, ed. Christopher P. Jones and Charles Segal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 59–61. 5 Elaine K. Gazda, “Roman Sculpture and the Ethos of Emulation: Reconsidering Repetition,” in Greece in Rome: Influence, Integration, Resistance, ed. Christopher P. Jones and Charles Segal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 145–6, 148. See also Bettina Bergmann, “Greek Masterpieces and Roman Recreative Fictions,” in Greece in Rome: Influence, Integration, Resistance, ed. Christopher P. Jones and Charles Segal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 91. 6 Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia I, 3, 2 = Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, vol. 1 ( Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974), nos. 147 a, 147 b. The Jewish community that existed in Rome by the mid-second century probably endured and grew in size and significance in the decades that followed.

Roman Attitudes to Jews and Judaism in the First Century BCE

are referred to for the first time in a piece of forensic literature composed by Cicero in the context of the defense of his client Flaccus. Lucius Valerius Flaccus, ex-governor of Asia, had been accused of maladministration (de repetundis) by the Greek, the Roman, and the Jewish inhabitants of the province and was brought to trial at Rome in 59 BCE. The charges against him involved financial and monetary issues, were serious, and could not be denied. The only way for Cicero to have his client acquitted was to claim that the charges lacked juridical value. This was achieved by demonstrating that the adverse witnesses were not worthy of being believed. Asian Jews accused Flaccus of having confiscated their sacred monies. Cicero does not deny it and does not even tackle the legality of Flaccus’s procedure. He concentrates on one issue only: the accusation is not to be taken into account since the Jews are enemies of the Roman Republic.7 Of the Asian Jews, Cicero probably knew nothing. So he rather talks of those living at Rome, insinuating that they side with the lowest social strata of the city, which means that they are to be seen as dangerous elements for the welfare of the Roman society, who may subvert the public order. This insinuation had nothing to rely on,8 but the judges were obviously not supposed to investigate it. Then a general accusation is put forward by Cicero: the Jewish religion is a barbarian one (barbara superstitio) “at variance with the glory of our empire, the dignity of our name, the customs of our ancestors.”9 At the end, he turns to the Jews of Judea, who four years earlier had opposed the conquest of their country, had fought against Pompey’s troops, and had been vanquished. The conclusion is obvious: Jews, all Jews, are Rome’s potential and actual enemies—a point to which Roman jurors were particularly sensitive. It follows that their accusations are not to be taken into account since they are irrelevant.10

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See Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 19. Pro Flacco, 28:66–9 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 68. See Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, “Were They Seditious? The Jews of Rome in the Sixties BCE,” Italia 13–15 (2001): 9–24; and Silvia Cappelletti, The Jewish Community of Rome, from the Second Century B.C. to the Third Century C.E (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2006), 44–8. As Gruen points out, the notion that Jews were incited and mobilized by Roman politicians, and that they formed a cadre for the populares, is pure construct, which is nowhere buttressed by testimony (Gruen, Diaspora, 23). Pro Flacco, 28:69 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 68. On Cicero’s account on the Jews, see Yochanan Hans Lewy, “Cicero on the Jews” [in Hebrew], Zion 7 (1941/2): 109–34; Jacques-Emmanuel Bernard, “Philosophie politique et antijudaisme chez Cicéron,” Scripta Classica Israelica 19 (2000): 113–31; and Miriam Ben Zeev, “The Myth of Cicero’s Anti-Judaism,” in Görge K. Hasselhoff et al. (eds.), Religio Licita? Rom und die Juden, Studia Judaica 84 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), 105–34.

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The role played by the Jews in this trial was minimal vis-à-vis that of the Greek and Roman witnesses. Cicero, therefore, deals with the Jewish charges briefly and does not look for previous sources in literary tradition. If he had done so, he would have found libels and slanders about the Jews in the work of his teacher of rhetoric, Apollonios Molon, whose invective (suskeué) against the Jews is mentioned by Eusebius.11 Josephus, too, states that Apollonios dealt at length with Jewish atheism, misanthropy, cowardice, recklessness, primitiveness, lack of inventiveness. and separatism.12 These remarks would have served Cicero’s purposes very well. One may therefore surmise that he would hardly have overlooked them if he had known them. No trace of Hellenistic sources emerges also from Cicero’s witty observation uttered during the trial against Verres, which alludes to a link between Jews and pigs,13 and from a passage of the De Provinciis Consularibus where Cicero states that the Jews, like the Syrians, were born to be slaves.14 This last remark belongs to a cliché derived from the Greek literature that so deeply permeates Cicero’s writings and his attitude of mind, according to which members of a subject people were born slaves.15 In this specific case, Cicero may be also referring to factual reality, since numerous Jewish slaves had recently arrived at Rome as war captives, not only in the immediate aftermath of Pompey’s victory but also as consequence of continuing fighting in Judaea in the following years.16 Other than these passages, Cicero nowhere mentions the Jews in his works, not even in those dealing with philosophy and religion,17 which may well be taken to mean that he did not have special personal interest in the Jews,

11 Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, IX, 19, 1 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 46. 12 C. Ap., 2, 79–80, 89, 91–6 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 48. On the anti-Jewish ethnographic treatise by Apollonius Molon, see Bezalel Bar-Kochva, The Image of the Jews in Greek Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 469–524. 13 Verres was the Roman word for a castrated porker, and, when a freedman suspected of Jewish practices wanted to thrust aside the Sicilian accusers and denounce Verres himself, Cicero is reported by Plutarch to have remarked: “What has a Jew to do with a Verres?” (Plutarch, Vita Ciceronis, 7, 6 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 263). 14 De Provinciis Consularibus 5, 10 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 70. 15 Benjamin H. Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004), 463. 16 See Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 204 and Sten Hidal, “The Jews as the Romans Saw Them,” in The Synagogue of Ancient Ostia and the Jews of Rome: Interdisciplinary Studies, edited by Birger Olsson et al. (Stockholm: Paul Aströms Förlag, 2001), 141. 17 See Zvi Yavetz, “Judeophobia in Classical Antiquity: a Different Approach,” Journal of Jewish Studies 44 (1993): 11.

Roman Attitudes to Jews and Judaism in the First Century BCE

so that, even if he did occasionally consult historical and antiquarian works,18 in the case of the Jews he did not find it necessary to look at previous sources on their history and customs. The same applies to the brief reference to the Jews found in the work of Marcus Terentius Varro, another significant figure on the Roman political and intellectual scene. Following a long tradition of Stoic philosophical thought that originated with Zeno,19 Varro censures the cult of images and praises the Jews for their aniconic cult, which, he claims, once upon a time also characterized the cult of the Romans themselves, and to which, he emphasizes, they should revert.20 The passage is preserved by Augustine: He (Varro) also says that for more than one hundred and seventy years the ancient Romans worshipped the gods without an image. “If this usage had continued to our own day,” he says, “our worship of the gods would be more devout.” And in support of his opinion he adduces, among other things, the testimony of the Jewish people. And he ends with the forthright statement that those who first set up images of the gods for the people diminished reverence in their cities as they added to error, for he wisely judged that gods in the shape of senseless images might easily inspire contempt.21

It is difficult to know from where Varro may have learned about the aniconic nature of the Jewish cult. The first to mention it is Diodorus Siculus, quoting from the work of Hecataeus of Abdera (third century BCE). He states that Moses “had no images whatsoever of the gods made for them, being of the opinion 18 On the importance of history for Cicero, see Peter A Brunt, “Cicero and Historiography,” in idem, Studies in Greek History and Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 182, 186–8. 19 On the philosophical background of this work of Varro, see Peter Van Nuffelen, “Varro’s Divine Antiquities: Roman Religion as an Image of Truth,” Classical Philology 105 (2010): 162–88, especially 182–4 on early aniconism in Roman religion. 20 An aniconic ancient Roman cult is also mentioned by Plutarch, who attributes it to the initiative of the mythological figure of King Numa Pompilius in the seventh century BCE. Under the influence of the philosopher Pythagoras, Numa Pompilius is said to have forbidden “the ancient Romans to revere an image of the deity in the form either of man or of beast. Nor was there among them in this earlier time any image or statue of the Divine Being; during the first one hundred and seventy years they built temples, indeed, and other sacred shrines, but placed in them no figure of any kind; persuaded that it is impious to liken higher things to lower, and that we can have no conception of God except by the intellect” (Plutarchus, Numa, 8). 21 Apud: Augustinus, De civitate dei, 4, 31 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 72 a.

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that God is not in human form; rather the Heaven that surrounds the earth is alone divine, and rules the universe.”22 An elaboration of the same conception appears also in the work of Strabo, who writes: Moses … said, and taught, that the Egyptians were mistaken in representing the Divine Being by the images of beasts and cattle, as were also the Libyans; and that the Greeks were also wrong in modeling gods in human form; for, according to him, God is the one thing alone that encompasses us all, and encompasses land and sea—the thing which we call heaven, or universe, or the nature of all that exists. What man, then, if he has sense, could be bold enough to fabricate an image of God resembling any creature amongst us? Nay, people should leave off all image-carving, and, setting apart a sacred precinct and a worthy sanctuary, should worship God without an image …23

In the same generation, Livy, too, is aware of the peculiarity of the Jewish cult, as we learn from a passage of the Scholia in Lucanum, where Livy is said to have noticed that “they do not state to which deity pertains the temple at Jerusalem, nor is any image found there, since they do not think the God partakes of any figure.”24 These authors, however, did not necessarily rely on literary sources. Jewish aniconism may have been widely known at Rome after Pompey conquered Jerusalem, entered the Temple of Jerusalem, and discovered that the Holy of Holies was devoid of cult images.25 A Jewish source cannot be ruled out either: a Jewish community had been thriving in town for several generations. People heard, spoke, and transmitted notions, especially when they were peculiar ones. The first author to display some interest in the Jews is a historian of Gallic origin, Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus, a learned historian of wide horizons, especially interested in ethnographic questions and in neighboring peoples.26 For 22 Aegyptiaca, apud: Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, XL, 3, 4 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 11.. 23 Geographica, XVI, 2, 35 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 115. Strabo may rely here either on Diodorus’s work, either directly or through an intermediate source (see Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 305) or may be quoting a source no longer extant: see Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 25–6. 24 Scholia in Lucanum 2.593 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 133. See also Lydo, De Mensibus, 4.53 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 134. 25 Margaret H. Williams, “The Disciplining of the Jews of Ancient Rome: Pure Gesture Politics?,” Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 15 (2010), 86n37. 26 On his personality, see J. M. Alonso-Núñez, “An Augustan World History: The ‘Historiae Philippicae’ of Pompeius Trogus,” Greece and Rome 34 (1987): 57–8. See also Bezalel

Roman Attitudes to Jews and Judaism in the First Century BCE

him, as Alonso-Núnez points out, “the actor in history is mankind, not the city of Rome”—a universal conception deeply rooted in Stoic philosophy.27 It is therefore no wonder that his account of the Jews, which appears in his world history Historiarum Philippicarum libri XLIV, is the longest and most detailed one written in the first century BCE. It reaches us only secondhand, in the summary composed in third century CE by Justinus. Even if Justinus left out what he thought would not interest the audience of his own time,28 it appears that he did not change the original structure of Trogus’s account of the Jews, which followed the conventional scheme of Hellenistic ethnographical works since the time of Herodotus: a report on the origins, an account of their history, and some details about the land. The part dealing with origins presents three different traditions. The first has the Jews originating from the city of Damascus: The origin of the Jews was from Damascus, the most illustrious city of Syria, whence also the stock of the Assyrian kings through Queen Samiramis had sprung. The name of the city was given by King Damascus, in honor of whom the Syrians consecrated the sepulcher of his wife Arathis as a temple, and regard her since then as a goddess worthy of the most sacred worship. After Damascus, Azelus, and then Adores,29 Abraham and Israhel were their kings.30

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Bar-Kochva, “An Extraordinary Jewish Ethnography Related by a Roman-Gallic Augustan Historian” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 83 (2015): 337–99. Alonso-Núñez, “An Augustan World History,” 65. See also Otto Seel, “Pompeius Trogus and das Problem der Universalgeschichte,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, vol. II. 30.2, Sprache und Literatur (Literatur der augusteischen Zeit: Allgemeines, einzelne Autoren), ed. Wolfgang Haase (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982), 1363–1423. As Heckel points out, the things which Justin claims to have omitted from his own work are those which “did not make pleasurable reading or serve to provide a moral” (Waldemar Heckel, “Introduction, Part II: History and Historiography,” in Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, vol. 1, ed. J. C. Yardley [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997], 17–18.) See also Alonso-Núñez, “An Augustan World History,” 70 and John Buckler, “The Actions of Philip II in 347 and 346 B.C.: A Reply to N.G.L. Hammond,” The Classical Quarterly 46 (1996): 385. On the date of Justinus’s summary, see Timothy D. Barnes, “Two Passages of Justin,” The Classical Quarterly 48 (1998): 589–93. Azelus and Adores probably stand for Hazael and Hadad, the well-known kings of Aram; Josephus calls them Azaelos and Adados and relates that they were accorded divine honors by the people of Damascus “because of their benefactions and the building of temples with which they adorned the city of Damascus” (Ant. 9.93). Apud: Iustinus, Historiae Philippicae, libri XXXVI Epitoma, 2, 1–3 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 137.

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This is not the only literary reference concerning a Syrian origin of the Jews. Abraham’s presence in Damascus is mentioned also in the world history composed more or less at the same time by Nicholas of Damascus. There we read that Abrames reigned in Damascus, a foreigner who had come with an army from the country beyond Babylon called the land of the Chaldees. But, not long after, he left the country also with his people for the land called Canaan but now Judaea, where he settled, he and his numerous descendants, whose history I shall recount in another book. The name of Abram is still celebrated in the region of Damascus, and a village is shown that is called after him “Abram’s abode.”31

The details reported by Nicholas and Trogus are different and exclude a direct link between them, but it is not impossible that both of them ultimately derive from similar sources of Syrian origin. Trogus’s consultation of Syrian sources is no surprise. He is known to have used even Indian ones.32 The second tradition presented by Trogus follows the biblical account, dealing at length with the sons of Israel ( Jacob), the hatred of the brothers toward Joseph, his sale into Egypt, the interpretation of the dream of the King, the favor enjoyed in Egypt, and then Moses and the Exodus.33 All this, however, is presented with numerous mistakes: the sons of Israel are ten and not twelve, Joseph is presented as the youngest one instead of Benjamin, the beauty of Moses (Moyses) is mentioned instead of that of Joseph,34 and an Arruas (probably standing for Aharon) is mentioned as son of Moyses, who was made priest and “soon after created King.”35 Chronology, too, has some gaps: from Joseph we jump to Moses, who is presented as Joseph’s son.36 All these deviations from 31 Historiae, apud Josephus, Ant., 1, 159–60 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 83. Stern suggests that the tradition of Abraham’s sojourn at Damascus may well have originated in Jewish circles in Syria and be rooted in the fact that the road from Haran, where Abraham had been staying after leaving Ur, to the land of Canaan, led through Damascus (Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 234). 32 See Giovanni Forni and Maria Gabriella Angeli Bertinelli, “Pompeo Trogo come fonte di storia,” ANRW II, 30, 2 (1982): 1355–6. 33 Apud: Iustinus, Historiae Philippicae, libri XXXVI Epitoma, 2.4–11 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 137. 34 Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 2.4–11. 35 Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 2.16. 36 Apollonius Molon, too, presents Moses as Joseph’s grandson (De Iudaeis, apud Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, IX, 19, 3 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 46), but there seems

Roman Attitudes to Jews and Judaism in the First Century BCE

the biblical account make it clear that Trogus did not himself consult the Septuagint or a Latin translation that may have circulated at Rome, of which in any case nothing is known. Here he seems to have quoted hearsay or a free—very free—version of the biblical account, in oral or written form.37 Surprisingly, in the middle of his quasi-biblical account, between the mention of Moses’s beauty and the Exodus, Trogus states that “the Egyptians, being troubled with scabies and leprosy and warned by an oracle, expelled him [namely, Moses], with those who had the disease, out of Egypt.”38 Here an Egyptian tradition is reflected. A definite identification, however, is impossible since several accounts of the Exodus seen from the Egyptian perspective have reached us through later quotations, and more may have existed that are no longer extant. Chronologically, the first one is the lost work composed by Hecataeus in the third century BCE, quoted by Diodorus Siculus. While dealing with the history of Egypt, Diodorus presents an excursus on the Jewish people, where he states: When in ancient times a pestilence arose in Egypt, the common people ascribed their troubles to the workings of a divine agency; for indeed with many strangers of all sort dwelling in their midst and practicing different rites of religion and sacrifice, their own traditional observances in honor of the gods had fallen into disuse. Hence, the natives of the land surmised that unless they removed the foreigners, their troubles would never be resolved. At once, therefore, the aliens among them banded together and, as some say, were cast ashore in Greece and other regions … but the greater number were driven into what is now called Judaea.39

This version has a neutral and objective tone, similar to that of Trogus, but details are different and there is no mention of an oracle.40 The expulsion of the Jews from Egypt is referred to also by Manetho, an Egyptian priest living in the to be no reason to suppose a direct link between the two. See John G. Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972), 50 also on the possible reasons for the assumption of a father-son relationship between the two leaders. 37 On Trogus’s use of oral sources, see Forni and Angeli Bertinelli, “Pompeo Trogo come fonte di storia, ”1354 and Alonso-Núñez, “An Augustan World History,” 61 and 71n16. 38 Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 2.12. 39 Hecataeus, Aegyptiaca, apud Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Hitorica, 40.3, 1–2 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 11. 40 On the possibility that Trogus used a Greek universal history published in his own lifetime and shortly before the appearance of the works of Diodorus of Sicily and Nicolaus of Damascus, see Heckel, “Introduction,” 30.

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third century BCE, whose account of the Jews, now lost, is cited by Josephus Flavius. Manetho does not mention the existence of an oracle but of a man “who, in virtue of his wisdom and knowledge of the future, was reputed to be a partaker in the divine nature,” who assured the Egyptian king, Amenophis, that “he would able to see the gods if he cleansed the whole land of lepers and other polluted persons. The king was delighted, and assembled all those in Egypt whose bodies were wasted by disease … these he cast into the stone-quarries to the East of the Nile, there to work segregated from the rest of Egyptians.” The account proceeds with the revolt of these people, led by a man called Osarseph, who later “changed his name and was called Moses.” At the end, the Egyptian king and his son joined battle and defeated them, killing many and pursuing the others to the frontiers of Syria.41 This narrative displays a definitely negative attitude toward the Jews, and therefore is quite different from that of Trogus, but there is something in common. Both of them regard the Jews as a part of the Egyptian people. Manetho speaks of “Egyptian learned priests attacked by leprosy,”42 and Trogus has Arruas (probably standing for Aharon) made priest “to supervise the Egyptian rites.”43 Another hostile version of the expulsion of the Jews from Egypt is offered by Chaeremon, cited by Josephus: “Isis appeared to the King Amenophis in his sleep, and reproached him for the destruction of her temple in war-time. The sacred scribe Phritibautes told him that, if he purged Egypt of its contaminated populations, he might cease to be alarmed. The King, thereupon, collected 250,000 persons and banished them from the country. Their leaders were scribes, Moses and another scribe, Joseph.”44 Then the king quells a revolt of these people and he “drives the Jews, to the number of 200,000, into Syria.” The existence of an oracle responsible for the decision to expel the Jews, mentioned by Trogus, appears in the work of another Egyptian author, Lysimachus. According to the quotation of Josephus, Lysimachus wrote that Jews afflicted by leprosy took refuge in temples and that the oracle of Ammon told the Egyptian king “to purge the temples of impure and impious persons, to drive them out of these sanctuaries into the wilderness …”45 A brief 41 42 43 44 45

Manetho, apud Jos., C. Ap., 1.228–52 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 21. Aegyptiaca, apud Josephus, C.Ap., I.235. Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 2.16. Chaeremon, apud Josephus, C. Ap., 1.288–92 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 178. “In the reign of Bocchoris, king of Egypt, the Jewish people, who were afflicted with leprosy, scurvy and other maladies, took refuge in the temples and lived a mendicant existence … King Bocchoris thereupon sent to consult the oracle of Ammon about the failure of the crops. The god told him to purge the temples of impure and impious persons, to drive them

Roman Attitudes to Jews and Judaism in the First Century BCE

statement concerning the expulsion of the Jews is preserved also by Ptolemy of Mendes46 and by a Greco-Egyptian prophecy contained in a papyrus, where, however, the text is extremely fragmentary.47 None of these extant versions is reported exactly by Trogus. One is therefore left to wonder whether he consulted one or some of them and decided to summarize it giving it his personal touch and an objective tone, or, alternatively, whether he found a short version of the expulsion in a source, possibly a Latin one, which is no longer extant. The problem of the way Trogus consulted his sources is a vexed question. From what is found in his work, it appears that his reading was extensive. Traces of Ctesias of Cnidus, Herodotus, Ephorus, and Theopompus, are detectable in the early books of his Historiae Philippicae; for Alexander and the Successors, he seems to have consulted Cleitarchus and Duris; for the Hellenistic age, Phylarchus, Timaeus, Polybius, and Posidonius. This is a really impressive range of sources if he himself consulted all of them, and to have woven the extensive histories of these Greeks into a Latin world history would have been no mean feat.48 The possibility has therefore been suggested that Trogus may have translated into Latin a Greek work which had already “stitched together” the major histories of the eastern world from a variety of books, such as that of Theopompus or the work probably entitled “Kings” or “On Kings” composed by Timagenes of Alexandria.49 According to Stern, the “Timagenes theory” would fit particularly well Trogus’s excursus on the Jews.50 Having been born at Alexandria, Timagenes was certainly acquainted with the Egyptian traditions about the expulsion of the Jews, but being of Greek and not of Egyptian origin, he may have censured their anti-Jewish nuances.51 True,

46 47 48 49

50 51

out of these sanctuaries into the wilderness …” (Lysimachus, Aegyptiaca, apud: Jossephus, C. Ap., 1.304–11 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 158). Apud: Tatianus, Oratio ad Gaecos, 38 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, nos. 157 a, 157 b. Menahem Stern, “A Fragment of Greco-Egyptian Prophecy and the Tradition of Jews’ Expulsion from Egypt in Chaeremon’s History” [in Hebrew], Zion 3–4 (1963): 223–7. Giovanni Forni, Valore storico e fonti di Pompeo Trogo (Urbino: S.T.E.U, 1958), 45–9; Heckel, “Introduction,” 31. A. Von Gutschmid, “Trogus und Timagenes,” Rheinische Museum 37 (1882): 552–3; Curt Wachsmuth, “Timagenes und Trogus,” Rheinische Museum 46 (1891): 465–79; Heckel, “Introduction,” 31. On Timagenes’s works, see Marta Sordi, “Timagene di Alessandria; uno storico ellenocentrico e filobarbaro,” ANRW II, 30, 1 (1982): 775–97. See Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 222. Menachem Stern, “Timagenes of Alexandria as a Source for the History of the Hasmonean Monarchy” [in Hebrew], in Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple, Mishna and Talmud: Studies in Honor of Shmuel Safrai, ed. Aharon Oppenheimer et al. ( Jerusalem: Yad Itzhak ben Zvi, 1993), 12. The possibility that Trogus used Posidonius directly is maintained by René Bloch,

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Trogus’s version of the expulsion of the Jews from Egypt is very different from that of the Egyptian sources. Trogus presents it in a purely matter-of-fact fashion, with no hostile overtones.52 The reason for the expulsion of the Jews, for example, is linked by Trogus not to the anger of the gods, as in the Egyptian sources, but rather to the necessity to avoid the spread of leprosy: ne pestis ad plures serperet.53 This neutral tone, however, may well have stemmed from Trogus’s personal choice and not necessarily from Timagenes’s work. In fact, the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive. Even if the “Timagenes hypothesis” has been rejected by many scholars54 and one may not rule out the possibility that Trogus also personally consulted other sources,55 which seem to have been of high quality,56 it also cannot be denied that Trogus was also influenced by Timagenes. “Many of the historians, of whom recent scholarship has found traces in the Philippic History,” Heckel points out, “may have been known to Trogus through this intermediary … It would be surprising that Timagenes’ work, completed shortly before Trogus set about creating his own in Latin, did not influence, or, indeed, form the basis of the latter.”57 After his presentation of the Exodus from an Egyptian point of view, Trogus returns to his Jewish source, and, with little respect for geography, states that “Moyses, having reached Damascus, his ancestral home, took possession of Mount Sinai.”58 No mention is made of the promulgation of the Law. Instead, it is said that the Jews fast on Sabbath (“Moyses … consecrated the seventh day … for a fast day”),59 a statement that is found also in the work of Strabo.60 The

52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60

Antike Vorstellungen vom Judentum: der Judenexkurs des Tacitus im Rahmen der griechisch-römischen Ethnographie, Historia Einzelschriften 160 (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2002), 58n96. See Erich S. Gruen, “The Use and Abuse of the Exodus Story,” Jewish History 12 (1998): 98. Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 2.12. See the works of Seel, Richter, Forni-Bertinelli, Urban, and Malitz cited by Heckel, “Introduction,” 31. See Frank W. Walbank, “Livy, Macedonia and Alexander,” in Ancient Macedonian Studies in Honor of Charles F. Edson, ed. Harry J. Dell (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1981), 352–4; David Rokeah, “Ancient Jewish Proselytism in Theory and in Practice,” Theologische Zeitschrift 52 (1996): 292–3n46; the works cited by Buckler, “The Actions of Philip II,” 385n41 and Heckel, “Introduction,” 30–1. Forni and Bertinelli, “Pompeo Trogo come fonte di storia,” 1347nn298–303. Heckel, “Introduction,” 31, 33. Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 2.14. On other possible reasons lying behind this statement, see Gager, Moses, 52. Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 2.14. While dealing with the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey, Strabo states that “Pompey seized the city, it is said, after watching for the day of fasting, when the Judeans were abstaining from all work” (Geographica, XVI.2, 40 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 115). Stern

Roman Attitudes to Jews and Judaism in the First Century BCE

belief that the Sabbath was a fast day—which was apparently very common at Rome61—may well have reached Trogus through hearsay.62 From the treatment of origins the text turns to history. Trogus observes that after Moses, Arruas was made priest, and “ever afterwards it was a custom among the Jews to have the same persons both for kings and priests,” a notion which certainly came from sources dealing with the Hasmonean period.63 Trogus ends by pointing out that “by their justice combined with religion, it is almost incredible how powerful they became.”64 Then some details are offered about the land of Judea, its groves of palm and balsam trees, its gentle sunshine, its fertility, and the Dead Sea, where “all inanimate substances sink to the bottom.”65 At the end, Trogus returns to history. The period of the monarchy is omitted, and Xerxes is erroneously said to have been the first to conquer the Jews. Then Alexander’s conquest is mentioned, and the rebellion against the Seleucids. In this context, allusion is made to a treaty between Judea and Rome, which Trogus takes as tantamount to an acquisition of liberty for the Jews: “On revolting from Demetrius and soliciting the favor of the Romans, they were the first of all the eastern peoples that regained their liberty, the Romans then readily bestowing what was not their own.”66 The last phrase has an ironic ring,

suggests that Strabo may have condensed the events creating the impression that the Temple fell on a Sabbath, which, for him, was a fast day (Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 307). On the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey, see Eyal Regev, “How Did the Temple Mount Fall to Pompey?” Journal of Jewish Studies 48 (1997): 276–89. 61 A letter of Augustus to Tiberius quoted by Suetonius states: “Not even a Jew, my dear Tiberius, fasts so scrupulously on his Sabbaths as I have to-day” (apud Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 76.2 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, vol. 2, 1980, no. 303). Petronius, too, mentions “the fasts of Sabbath imposed by the law” (Fragmenta, no. 37 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 195), and Martial mentions the breath of fasting Sabbatarian women (Epigrammata 4.4 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 239). These, and a number of additional Latin sources, are regarded as pointing to factual reality by Margaret H. Williams, “Being a Jew in Rome: Sabbath Fasting as an Expression of Roman-Jewish Identity,” in Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire, ed. John M. G. Barclay (London: T. & T. Clark, 2004), 9–15. She argues that the Jews, many of whom arrived at Rome as slaves, would have decided to fast on Sabbath because of their painful associations with that particular Sabbath of 63 BCE when Pompey conquered Jerusalem, which marked for them the beginning of exile and slavery (Williams, “Being a Jew in Rome,” 17). 62 On Trogus’s use of oral sources, see above, note 37. 63 See Bezalel Bar-Kochva, Pseudo-Hecataeus on the Jews: Legitimizing the Jewish Diaspora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 214. 64 Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 2.16. See Gruen, “The Use and Abuse of the Exodus Story”: 98. 65 Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 3.1–7. 66 Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 3.8.

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which may well depend on Timagenes, who is known for his critical attitude to Rome,67 but may also stem from a certain anti-Roman bias to be found in Trogus’s own work.68 Trogus’s style is neutral and objective. Tracing the reason why the Jews keep apart from their gentile neighbors, for example, Trogus relates it to the difficulties suffered by the Jews in Egypt: “And as they remembered that they had been driven from Egypt for fear of spreading infection, they took care, in order that they might not become odious, from the same cause, to their neighbors, to have no communication with strangers; a rule which, from having been adopted on that particular occasion, gradually became a religious institution.”69 This is strikingly different from the interpretation found in Diodorus, who, too, identifies the cause of Jewish behavior with the trauma of the expulsion from Egypt, but adds that this led to misanthropy and hostility toward foreigners.70 Pompeius Trogus, on the other hand, limits himself to observing that the Jews avoid contact with foreigners and does not add negative judgments. As Schäfer points out, the powerful misanthropia and misoxenia motif is “toned down” and converted into timidity toward foreigners.71 Trogus’s rational attitude also emerges from the way he depicts the Exodus itself, where he states that the Egyptians’ unsuccessful attempt to recover their purloined religious objects was thwarted by storms, which forced them to return to Egypt. Trogus here demythologizes the version of the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea that he may have found 67 Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 342. 68 On this point, see the different views of J. M. Alonso-Núñez, “L’opposizione contro l’imperialismo romano e contro il Principato nella storiografia del tempo di Augusto,” Rivista di Storia dell’Antichità 12 (1982): 131–41; idem, “An Augustan World History,” 66, 68–9; and of Eric Adler, “Who’s Anti-Roman? Sallust and Pompeius Trogus on Mithridates,” The Classical Journal 101 (2006): 402–3 and 385n11 on the works of von Gutschmid, Kaerst, Schanz and Hosius, Sanford, Swain, Mazzolani, and Santi Amantini. 69 Historiae Phil. Epitoma, 2.15. 70 “… as a result of their own expulsion from Egypt he (Moses) introduced an apanthropón tina kai misóxenon bion” (Hecataeus, Aegyptiaca, apud Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, 40.3, 4 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 11), “an unsocial and intolerant mode of life” (according to the translation of Walton reported by Stern), or “a way of life that is somewhat removed from the society of men and somewhat hostile to strangers,” according to the translation provided by Bar-Kochva, The Image of the Jews, 101. It is not impossible that here Diodorus is expressing a personal view. On the originality of Diodorus vis-à-vis his sources, see Filippo Càssola, “Diodoro e la storia romana,” ANRW II, 30, 1 (1982): 771; and Kenneth S. Sacks, Diodorus Siculus and the First Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 9–22; 205. On the possibility that here Trogus and Diodorus may rely on the same source, see above, note 40. 71 See Gager, Moses, 53; and Schäfer, Judeophobia, 26–7.

Roman Attitudes to Jews and Judaism in the First Century BCE

in whatever version of the biblical source he may have had.72 The rational approach displayed in the account of the Jews is not unique. As Bloch points out, a striking similarity in style is found between Trogus’s unbiased account of the Jews and that of other peoples.73 Trogus’s account of the Jews appears to have had little, if any, influence on contemporary and later literary works composed in Rome. In the first century BCE, only a few authors mention the Jews, in passing, as no more than an erudite, often ironic, addition to what they were saying. Tibullus has a brief reference to the Sabbath, which he calls “the accursed day of Saturn.”74 Horace mentions the observance of the Sabbath in a comic context,75 makes fun both of the gullibility of the Jews—a notorious trait of barbarian peoples—and of their ancestral customs,76 and alludes also, it appears, to their solidarity.77 In his Ars Amatoria, Ovid, too, mentions the Sabbath, calling it “the seven rites sacred to the Syrian Jews,”78 a day not suited for business79 and voyages.80 Horace’s and Ovid’s references to the Jews are kinds of jokes, comic and ironic allusions, passing jibes,81 and do not display any interest in their historical and ideological background. It is clear therefore that they do not report the views of previous Hellenistic sources about them. It therefore appears that in the first century BCE, the only historian who consulted Hellenistic literary sources while dealing with the Jewish people was Pompeius Trogus, who consulted sources of different origin—Greek, Syriac, Egyptian, and Jewish—but gave them his own personal interpretation. It therefore appears that the Hellenistic literary tradition played a very limited role at Rome in the first century BCE. What really mattered for Roman people was the social and political dimension of local life and the priorities of their own society.

72 Gager, Moses, 52. 73 Bloch, Antike Vorstellungen vom Judentum, 60. 74 Carmina, I.3, 18 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 126. 75 Sermones, I.9, 60–72 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 129. 76 Horace, Sermones, I.5, 96–101 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 128. 77 Sermones, I.4, ll. 139–43 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 127. See Hidal, “The Jews,” 142. 78 Ars Amatoria, I.76 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 141. 79 Ars Amatoria, I.416 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 142. 80 Remedia Amoris, 219–20 = Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 143. 81 Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 273.

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Part Two The Middle Ages and the Renaissance CHAPTER 2

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered at the Bologna University Library: Codicological, Textual, and Paleographic Features of an Ancient Eastern Tradition* 1

MAURO PERANI ∗ I am grateful to my friend and colleague Judith Schlanger, of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, for the help she gave me in the characterization of the writing of the Scroll of BUB, and for its comparison with the Sifre Torah fragments of the Cairo Genizah, a field in which she is a specialist. Together, at the Bologna University Library on November 21, 2014, we examined the ancient Sefer Torah, which presents many problems and mysteries. I am indebted to Jordan S. Penkower as well for his many insights into the field of the study of the oldest Sifre Torah in our possession, and the graphic and scribal characteristics of the BUB Sefer, in which he is a leading scholar—especially for the complex halakhah related to the graphics and layout of the text. My thanks to Geoffrey Khan for the precious suggestions he gave me. Thanks also to Angelo Piattelli for his information on the graphic characteristics of early Sifre Torah.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered Hic rotulus legis est quem scripsit Esdras scriba manu sua, quando sub Cyro rege redierunt filii captivitatis in Jerusalem1

THE REDISCOVERY OF THE ANCIENT SCROLL

I

t was my decision, several years ago, to write, using modern criteria, a new catalog of the small collection of thirty-six Hebrew manuscripts preserved at the Bologna University Library (Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, henceforth BUB), that led to the rediscovery of the ancient Sefer Torah of Bologna (Figure 1). In 2012, Dr. Giacomo Corazzol (who did most of the work) and I began to examine the manuscripts, dividing the task between us. I was the one who undertook the description of the scrolls, and of the codicological and paleographic characteristics of all the manuscripts in the collection.2 This Hebrew manuscript collection had been already cataloged in 1889 by Leonello Modona,3 a Jew born in Cento (between Bologna and Ferrara), who worked as a librarian at the BUB.4

1 Beginning of the Latin inscription, with a section in Hebrew containing the history of the scroll. It was written around the year 1304 on paper or parchment, and sewn into the back of the Sefer— today apparently lost, but mentioned during the sixteenth century. In English translation: “This is the Roll of the Law that Ezra the scribe wrote by his own hand when, under King Cyrus, the Jews returned to Jerusalem from captivity. This is the book of the Law of Moses, which Ezra the scribe wrote, and read before the multitude of men and women, and he stood in a tower [pulpit] of wood”; the second sentence is a free quotation from Nehemiah 8:1–4. For further information, see note 9. 2 The catalog appeared in June 2013: Mauro Perani and G. Corazzol, “Nuovo catalogo dei manoscritti ebraici della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna,” in BUB, Ricerche e cataloghi sui Fondi della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna (Argelato [BO]: Minerva Edizioni, 3, 2013), 13–192, also printed separately. 3 Leonello Modona, “Catalogo dei codici ebraici della Biblioteca della R. Università di Bologna,” in Cataloghi dei codici orientali di alcune biblioteche d’Italia stampati a spese del Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, vols. 1–4 (Florence: Tipografia dei Successori Le Monnier, 1878– 89); Vol. 4, Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna: Codici ebraici; Biblioteca Nazionale di Palermo: Codici orientali (Florence: Tipografia dei Successori Le Monnier, 1889), 321–72. 4 In the Dizionario bio-bibliografico dei bibliotecari italiani del XX secolo (The Bio-bibliographical Dictionary of Italian Librarians of the Twentieth Century), available online at www.aib.it/aib/ editoria/dbbi20/modona.htm, we read the following information on Leonello Modona, in my English translation: “Modona, Leonello (Cento, FE, October 4, 1841–Parma, August 13, 1902). After graduating, probably in the arts, he cultivated the study of Hebrew and biblical literature and, after winning a scholarship from the Institute of Higher Studies in Florence in 1880, he followed there the courses of Oriental Languages with teachers David Castelli and

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Figure 1 The Sefer Torah of Bologna University Library, open at Exodus 15, containing “The Song of the Sea.”

Fausto Lasinio. He worked in government libraries from 1883, as assistant to the Bologna University Library, and, with the establishment of a special position, Modona was appointed fourth-class librarian on January 1, 1886. Initially, he stayed at the Bologna University Library, and then transferred to the Palatine Library of Parma, where he spent the major part of his career. He was promoted to third class in December 1891 and to second in February 1901. In addition to various writings on Oriental and Italian literature, he published a catalogue of the Hebrew manuscripts at the University Library of Bologna (1889). This was followed by an article on Hebrew incunabula and other rare books from the same library (1890), as well as a paper on the seat of the Palatine Library and the renovations that were made to it at that time (1894). Modona also compiled a bibliography of Ireneo Affò (1898). He contributed to Il Bibliofilo and to the Rivista delle biblioteche e degli archivi, where he published an important article on the cataloging of Oriental works (1889), with annotations on the transcription, an outline of legislation, and a description of the work done at the site of the Parma Library (1895). He was a member of the Società Asiatica Italiana and of the Society of Jewish Studies in Paris.” Among Leonello Modona’s publications, we mention a short auto-bibliography entitled Di alcune fra le principali pubblicazioni del dr. Leonello Modona: sottobibliotecario nella reale Biblioteca di Parma [n.p., 1894?], and, of Hebrew bibliographic interest, the following studies:

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

The ancient Sefer Torah, together with another Sefer of later date that is missing most of the first three books Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus (labeled Scroll 1), was part of the BUB Hebrew manuscripts collection, with the ancient reference Banc. IA Cass. 1. H 2, and a more recent reference, Scroll 2. In his catalog, Leonello Modona dated Scroll 2 to the seventeenth century, adding a question mark (?), stating that its origin was unknown and describing it with the following words: Writing of Italian type, rather clumsy-looking, where some letters, in addition to the usual crowns or strokes (‫)תגין‬, show certain uncommon and strange appendices. Century XVII (?). Contains the entire Pentateuch. It is very incorrect, and has many omissions and additions in the margin by the hand of the scribe of the text. Its provenance is unknown.

Modona was not a scholar in the field of Hebrew manuscripts, but even if he had been one, Hebrew Codicology and Paleography had not yet been recognized as a science; that happened only in the 1960s, thanks to the work of Colette Sirat, Malachi Beit-Arié, and Ada Yardeni. When this Jewish librarian worked at the BUB, the Cairo Genizah collection with its eleventh- to twelfth-century fragments had not yet been discovered. It was brought to scholarly attention only at the end of the nineteenth century, when Solomon Schechter, who discovered the Cairo Genizah collection, traveled to Egypt in 1896. Leonello Modona was unable to understand the characteristics and dating of the ancient scroll from Bologna, which was so different to his eyes from the typology with which he was familiar, based on the Sifre Torah of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, of which he had probably seen many specimens. As a result, he considered the scroll, with its unusual Masoretic features (unusual crowns adorning some letters, and lefufot letters, with curled strokes), and full of corrections and additions in the margins, as containing a text of no value. Relazione sulla scoperta di un prezioso incunabulo nella Biblioteca della R. Università di Bologna (Bologna: Società tip. già Compositori, 1883); Una poesia inedita di Manuello Giudeo (Casale Monferrato: Tipografia G. Pane, 1885); Degli incunaboli e di alcune edizioni ebraiche rare o pregevoli nella Biblioteca della r. Università di Bologna (Brescia: Stab. Tip. Lit. F. Apollonio, 1890); Norme per la catalogazione di opere orientali in biblioteche italiane per Leonello Modona, sottobibliotecario nella R. Palatina di Parma (Florence: Tip. Di G. Carnesecchi e Figli, 1890); Topografia della Reale Biblioteca di Parma: cenni descrittivi per Leonello Modona (Parma: Tip. Ferrari e Pellegrini, 1894); La Reale biblioteca di Parma (n.p., 1896); Vita e opere di Immanuele Romano, studio postumo pubblicato a cura di G. Davide Ghiron (Florence: R. Bemporad, 1904).

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Thanks to my correct dating of the two scrolls in the new catalog that appeared in June 2013,5 Rita De Tata, then in charge of rare manuscripts and books at the Bologna University Library, carried out a valuable study, published in Italian in September 2013. She documented the exchange of the two scrolls that had occurred around the mid-nineteenth century, and as already confirmed in 1872. Prior to her study, we had no documentation on the exchange of the two scrolls, although I had laid the basis for this clarification, dating Scroll 2 (i.e., the oldest one), to the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, and Scroll 1 (wrongly considered the Scroll of Ezra) to the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries—exactly the contrary of what Leonello Modona did. The exchange of the two scrolls occurred, for various reasons, in 1815, after the old Sefer Torah returned from Paris, where Napoleon had transported it in 1802—a tragic mistake already included in written documents in 1866 and again in 1872.6 At the end of the description of Scroll 1, Giacomo Corazzol wrote: Notwithstanding all this, according to the paleographical analysis conducted by Mauro Perani the ms. dates back to the 16th century. Further research will, therefore, be necessary to determine why the information reported by Montfaucon, apparently reliable, do not fit in with the judgment of a paleographer.7

Thanks to De Tata’s documentary research, we have now discovered that the precious scroll of Bologna was famous and had already been located in the city since 1304, according to a witness, and as published by De Montfaucon. The French scholar reported that the Jews donated it to Friar Aimerico Giliani of Piacenza,8 on the occasion of his election in Toulouse of Provence (today 5 Perani and Corazzol, Nuovo catalogo dei manoscritti ebraici della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, 75. 6 R. De Tata, “The Scholar’s Eye, the Librarian’s Lens. A Short History of the Torah Scroll of Bologna University Library,” in Il Rotulo 2 della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, a cura della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna (Bologna, 2015), 22–35; originally published in Italian with the title: “L’occhio dello studioso e la lente del bibliotecario. Breve storia del rotulo ebraico della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna,” Quaderni di Storia 8 (June–Dec. 2014): 189–215. 7 Perani and Corazzol, Nuovo catalogo dei manoscritti ebraici della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, 75. Mauro Perani, “Textual and Para-Textual Devices of the Ancient Parchment of the Proto-Sephardic Torah of Bologna,” in The Ancient Sefer Torah of Bologna: Features and History, ed. Mauro Perani (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2020), forthcoming. 8 For further information on Aimerico Giliani, see Abele L. Redigonda, “Aimerico da Piacenza,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 1 (1960), available also online: http://www. treccani.it/enciclopedia/aimerico-da-piacenza_(Dizionario_Biografico)/. I translate into

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

southern France) as General Master of the Dominicans, whose general house was in the Convent of Saint Dominic in Bologna. Actually, we do not know the exact year when the Jews donated the scroll to the friar, because Aimerico became general master in 1304, but De Montfaucon, as we will see below, reports the year as 1308. The Jews at that time already considered the scroll to be very old, and even apocryphally attributed its copy to the hand of Ezra the scribe, who led the Jewish exiles from Babylon back to the Land of Israel in the fifth century BCE. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Ezra Scroll was known and considered so precious that it was kept locked in a theca with only two keys, one held by the Dominicans, and the other by the Municipality of Bologna. From the sixteenth until the eighteenth century, all the great scholars and Hebraists of Europe knew of the ancient Sefer, for example, Arias Montano and Bernard De Montfaucon. The latter saw it in Bologna in the library of the Convent of San Domenico on April 17, 1700, during a trip to Italy. This French scholar reported much precious information and valuable data concerning the scroll in his Diarium italicum published in Paris two year later, in 1702.9 English the short biography found there: “Born in Piacenza in the mid-thirteenth century, he belonged, according to Echard, to the family of Giliani. He entered the Dominican Order in Bologna on 31 July 1267, and then studied at the convent of St. Eustorgio in Milan. He subsequently taught for 24 years, primarily in Bologna, where, in 1297, he was also Prior and Consulter of the Inquisition, and moderator of the theological professorship from 1299 to 1304. On this date, being the provincial of Greece, despite his location in Toulouse during the general elective meeting, he did not take part in the vote, perhaps because though chosen, he was not confirmed. However, on the third vote, of May 16, he was elected general master of the Dominican Order. In the seven years he was general master, his government left an imprint, especially in the field of studies. After the General Chapter of Naples of 30 May 1311, he left the direction of the Order and retired to Bologna. He died in August 1327.” 9 In particular, in his report Diarium italiacum (B. De Montfaucon, Diarium italicum, sive Monumentorum veterum, Bibliothecarum, Museorum & cc. [Paris, 1702], 399–400), the French scholar copied the entire text of the Latin inscription sewn into the center of the back of the scroll. According to this Latin note, the Sefer Torah would have been an autograph, written by the hand of the same Ezra the Scribe when the Jews returned from Babylonian exile. After the reconstruction of the Second Temple, the Ezra Scroll would have been revealed for the veneration of the people. In 1304, some Jews, probably in Toulouse of Provence, donated the precious Pentateuch to Aimerico Giliani as a gift recognizing his election as General Master of the Dominican Order. When he returned to Bologna to undertake this position, he brought the scroll with him to the Library of the Dominicans. If the attribution to Ezra is clearly hyperbolic, the evidence of the inscriptions mentioning the donation of the scroll to Aimerico seems to be authentic. In fact, another scholar already knew and cited it in the sixteenth century, two hundred years before De Montfaucon copied and published it in 1702 in Paris. See R. De Tata, On the Trail of the “Ezra” Bible: Problems, Clues, Search Paths, in print in

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The Bolognese naturalist and botanist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605) quotes the scroll in the fifteenth century as Bibia [sic] of Ezra in S. Domenico, in his Biblologia [sic] with these words, in my English translation: The volumes are wrapped in the manner of a band, or a roll of canvas, which resembles the shape of a cylinder: in the same way as the Turks use books today. I truly believe that these volumes were made with papyrus sewn together, or glued together to make big rolls, even as the Bibia [sic] of Ezra in S. Domenico is made from many skins sewn together.

According to De Tata, the Spanish scholar Benito Arias Montano, who came to Italy in 1562, also knew of the BUB scroll. However, even though he very probably saw the Torah of Ezra, his report10 refers not to it but to an early twelfth-century codex also housed in the Dominican Library, because, as Saverio Campanini pointed out, he mentions the Masorah of the manuscript.11 The biblical scholar Benjamin Kennicott also knew it and used it in his work on the variant readings of the Old Testament published in 1780,12 and dated it to the end of the eleventh century. Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi, in the preface to his book Variae lectiones Veteris Testaments, also dated the scroll to the beginning of the thirteenth century.13 Finally, Abraham Berliner also saw it in Bologna in 1875, as stated in his report on the Italian library treasures.14

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the Proceedings of the Conference on the Bologna Sefer Torah, held in Bologna, September 22, 2016. Benito Arias Montano, De varia in hebraicis libris lectione (Antuerpiae: Cristophorus Plantinus, 1572), see Praefactio ad lectorem, unnumbered page. Actually, Montano writes: “We have the entire Bible in the Hebrew manuscripts, before the year four hundred, as it is written. They are in our more ancient Library Complutense; at Bologna we have seen the most elegant in the monastery of Preacher Friars (i.e., Dominicans); and we have seen in Milan at the Dominicans some excellent and very ancient copies.” Arias Montano clearly refers to the integra Biblia hebraica manuscript, or “entire handwritten Hebrew Bible,” being the Pentateuch, which is only the first part of the Bible. On Montano see Bernard Rekers, Benito Arias Montano (1527–98) (London–Leiden: The Warburg Institute–Brill, 1972). S. Campanini, “The “Ezra Scroll” of Bologna Vicissitudes of an Archetype Between Memory and Oblivion,” in print in the Proceedings of the Conference on the Bologna Sefer Torah, held in Bologna, September 22, 2016 in Mauro Perani, ed., The Ancient Sefer Torah of Bologna: Features and History, (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2020), forthcoming. B. Kennicott, Dissertatio Generalis in Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum (Oxford, 1780), 504n527. G. B. De Rossi, Variae lectiones Veteris Testaments (Parma, 1783), LXXXVIn527. A. Berliner, “Aus den Bibliotheken Italiens, XIII,” Magazin für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur, ed. A. Berliner, 2/2–3 (1875): 5–6.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

In short, the ancient Sefer Torah remained in Bologna in the library of the Dominican monastery from 1304 to 1802, when Napoleon, extending his control over Northern Italy, suppressed the monastic and religious orders. Furthermore, while he ordered them to deposit their archives and libraries in a public institution, Napoleon transported the most precious cultural treasures to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, among them our Sefer Torah, which his experts knew to be ancient and precious. All the cultural items brought by Napoleon to Paris, including these books and manuscripts, were listed in a printed book.15 When the scroll was brought to Paris by Napoleon in 1802, the librarians of the Nationale, who had access to Montfaucon’s Diarium italicum, noted that the words of the inscription written in Latin at the back of the scroll, reported by the learned French ecclesiastic, had been lost. So, when, after the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) and the anti-Napoleonic Restoration, the precious materials carried by Napoleon to Paris returned to Bologna, the Sefer had lost its Latin and Hebrew label sewn into the back at around the middle, which, fortunately, had been copied by De Montfaucon. The librarians, in the second half of the nineteenth century, were no longer able to recognize its identity. Until 1826–27, the Hebrew manuscripts belonging to religious communities remained at the BUB, then called the Library of the Institute of Science, and later the Papal Library of Bologna. In 1828, the manuscripts belonging to the Convent of San Salvatore returned to their home, to the Library of the Dominicans. In 1866, with the second suppression of religious communities, the manuscripts were confiscated from the convent for a second time, and were brought to the University Library. At this time, the librarians and catalogers were unable to describe the Oriental manuscripts correctly, including those in Hebrew. In 1872, Vittorio Ravà, a Bolognese Jew, mistakenly exchanged Scrolls 1 and 2.16 The mix-up of the two scrolls of the Pentateuch, and their tragic exchange, was thus definitively established, and would remain so up to my recent, correct dating of the two scrolls.

15 Catalogo de’ capi d’opera di pittura, scultura, antichità, libri, storia naturale, ed altre curiosità trasportati dall’Italia in Francia (Venezia: presso Antonio Curci, 1799), 24, where the Sefer Torah is described with these words: “Bologna. Biblioteca dei Domenicani… . Due manoscritti in rottolo, di pelle di Vitello.” And in footnote 5: “Il primo di questi rottoli contiene il Pentateuco in ebreo, ed è così antico, che un tempo lo si è creduto scritto dalla stessa mano di Esdra”; English version: “Two manuscripts on scroll, of calf skin.” And in footnote 5: “The first of these Scrolls contains the Pentateuch in Hebrew, and it is so old, that once it was believed to be written by the very hand of Ezra.” 16 V. Rava, Gli ebrei in Bologna. Cenni storici (Vercelli: Guglielmoni, 1872), 5n2.

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This explains why the librarians of the BUB considered another mutilated Sefer Torah (Scroll 1) to be the “Ezra Scroll,” attributing to it the information relating to the truly old Scroll 2. This scroll became the “older” one by mistake; it had never gone to Paris, had always lacked almost all of the first three books, and was donated to the library by Pope Benedict XIV, the Bolognese Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini (Bologna 1675–Rome 1758). Moreover, it should be dated to the fifteenth century. This exchange of the two pentateuchal scrolls also caused Leonello Modona not to recognize or appreciate the antiquity of Scroll 2, which he considered to be the ancient Scroll 1, attributing to it the historical information held by BUB relating to Scroll 2. The cataloger Modona was in fact aware of the information on the ancient scroll provided by De Montfaucon in his Diarum italiacum. Moreover, he also knew of Kennicott’s dating to the eleventh to twelfth centuries. In addition, Modona quoted De Rossi and his dating of the old Sefer from the thirteenth century, considering the attribution to the hand of Ezra to be a legend. In his catalog, he wrote: “neither the state of preservation, nor the type of characters, nor any other clue led us to consider it to be from a far-off age,” and concludes by showing that he did not realize that the scrolls had been exchanged, saying: “It was in Paris, from where it returned mutilated in 1815.”17 What exactly did De Montfaucon write? We must distinguish what he says, referring to what was reported to him by the Dominicans of Bologna on the occasion of his visit to examine the ancient scroll, and what he reports when copying the famous inscription, which he considered authentic. In fact, De Montfaucon observes that the Latin script in his view is written in a script of the early fourteenth century, and the same for the short inscription in Hebrew. To distinguish between the two different reports, I put Montfaucon’s comment in normal characters and the copied text in italics. Here are the salient phrases that describe the whole story, saying that for generations the Jews considered it old, and that it contains letters and their crowns so perfect and different from those seen in the other scrolls. These are his words: Ab antiquo pro tali habebatur inter Judaeos de generatione in generationem; et pro tali recepit eum reverendus magister ordinis frater Aymericus, cuius est. Talem etiam probaverunt ipsum Judaei litterati habitis 17 Modona, Catalogo dei codici ebraici della Biblioteca della R. Università di Bologna, 323–4 (3–4 in the offprint).

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered certis experimentis litteralibus in praesentia mei fratris P. Marsilii et Lectoris Perpyniani et fratris Petri Lobii. Quae quidem signa in aliis rotulis aut non talia, aut non tam perfecta habentur, ut ego probavi in multis rotulis valde antiquis et modernis. Certus itaque debet haberi et cum reverentia tractari rotulus iste, quia a tanto autore scriptus, et post combustam legem inspirante sancto Spiritu ordinatus, et aliis rotulis pro originali datus, ac tantis temporibus conservatus. Et quod non minus est ut nos et Judaei credamus, in templo monstrabatur in praecipuis festivitatibus, praestante actore legis ipso Deo et Domino nostro Jesu Christo.18

English version: From ancient times, the Jews from generation to generation considered the Scroll to be very old, and the reverend Master of the Order, Friar Aimerico, to which it belongs, received it as ancient. Some learned Jews also demonstrated that this scroll was very ancient through literary demonstrations held in the presence of myself, Friar P. Marsili, Lector of Perpignan, and Friar Peter Lobi. In fact, the scroll contains signs that are not present in other scrolls or are imperfect, as I have proved, comparing it with many other scrolls, very ancient and modern. Surely, then, this scroll should be considered and treated with the greatest respect, because it was written by such an important scribe, and structured according to the zealous law under the inspiration of the holy Spirit. Moreover, this scroll was considered to be the original for other scrolls and was for so many years preserved. Finally, yet importantly, as we Christians and the Jews believe, it was shown in the Temple on the great feast-days, by the aid of the same author of the Law, God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

De Montfaucon quotes also this inscription in Hebrew and Latin: / [sic] ‫ אשר כתב עזרא הספר‬/ ‫זה ספר תורת משה‬ ‫ ויעמד על מגדל עז‬/ ‫ מאיש ועד אישה‬/ ‫ויקרא לפני הקהל‬ Hic est liber legis Moysi, quem scripsit Esdras scriba, et legit eum in conspectu multitudinis a viro usque ad mulierem, et stabat in turri lignea.

18 B. De Montfaucon, Diarium italicum, sive Monumentorum veterum, Bibliothecarum, Museorum &cc. (Parigi, 1702), 399–400; all the following quotations are from these two pages.

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Part Two    The Middle Ages and the Renaissance English: This is the book of the Law of Moses, written by Ezra the scribe, who read it in front of the assembly, men and women and he stood on a tower of wood.19

The author of Diarium italicum continues by observing that in his view the Latin script can be dated to the beginning of the fourteenth century: “haec ut ex charactere liquet, tempore Aymerici Magistri ordinis conscripta sunt, qui eo officio fungebat anno Domini 1308” and, similarly, for the Hebrew inscription, he says: “Haec inscriptio eodem edita tempore putatur, quo latina superius allata.” One might wonder if De Montfaucon, who more than once defines the scroll as a codex, uses this term in a broad sense also for a scroll, or if it could relate to an ancient code of the Pentateuch from the twelfth century that also was in the library of the Convent of San Domenico. There is no doubt that the first premise is correct, confirmed by what he says at the beginning of his report on the ancient Pentateuch. The learned French scholar says that he had long desired to unroll (in Latin evolvere) the old Sefer of Bologna, with these words “Inerat jamdiu cupido evolvendi Codicis, quem a multis annis in sacrario S. Dominici asservari acceperam … Roganti ut evolvere liceret …” Moreover, he adds that some, considering the scroll to be the autograph of Ezra, mistakenly believe that it contains the biblical book of the same Ezra. Another important issue, according to the report of Diarium, is that the Jews donated the scroll to Aimerico. De Montfaucon refers to this information three times in his explanations of the history of the scroll, even though it does not appear in the note he copied, which had been sewn, as he himself relates, at the back of the scroll, about midway. In his introduction to the precious notes he transcribes, we read that: “Codex a Judaeis huic Monasterio dono oblatus fuit quo tempore Aymericus Praefectus et magister ordinis erat, initio scilicet decimiquarti saeculi ab annis quadringentis; Inscriptio in medio volumine assuta rem denuntiat his verbis” (“The Jews offered as a gift this codex [scroll] to this monastery at the time in which Aymericus was the chief and General Master of the order, namely at the beginning of fourteenth century, in 1304. An inscription sewn in the middle of the book [at the back] contains these words”). The second time he repeats: “nimirum Ebraei, cum munus istud Aymerico offerrent, tale commentitiae antiquitatis testimonium una protulerunt” (“No doubt that when the Jews donated this gift to Aymericus, they presented attestation of its antiquity”); and, finally, before reporting the note in Hebrew, the 19 The sentence is based on Nehemiah 8:1–4; ibid., 399–400.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

author of the Diarium italicum reiterates that “hic codex dono oblatus Aymerico fuit” (“This codex was donated as a gift to Aymericus”). At first glance, we might think that the Jews of Bologna donated this ancient scroll to Aimerico, but we should exclude this hypothesis, because there was no Jewish community in this city at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In fact, a more definite Jewish presence emerges only later, at the end of the fourteenth century, with the arrival of Jews from the regions of central Italy. It seems more probable that the Jews gave the ancient scroll to Aimerico when he received the prestigious appointment in Toulouse of Provence, not far from Perpignan. Then, when Aimerico moved to Bologna, he took the scroll with him, and then left it as a gift to the Convent of San Domenico when he left. The fact that the Jews gave a Sefer Torah to a Dominican friar obviously raises some questions. Jews or, more likely, converted Jews? De Montfaucon notes that the inscription sewn at the back of the scroll is to be considered coeval to Aimerico, who performed this office in the year 1304 or 1308 (“qui eo officio fungebatur anno Domini 1308”). In 1306, King Philippe le Bel expelled the Jews from France, following which a certain number of Jews converted to Christianity in order to avoid suffering, tragedy, and loss of property. Since the scroll, as we shall see later, probably came from the northern coast of Africa, perhaps Morocco, or southern Spain, one might assume that its owner brought it north, to Toulouse, in the current south of France, then called Provence, a part of Catalonia. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that the author of the note copied by De Montfaucon appears to be Friar P. Marsili, to whom the Jews, in the presence also of the lector of Perpignan and Friar Petrus Lobi, explained the reasons of antiquity and uniqueness of the Sefer Torah. We read in the abovementioned citation: “Some learned Jews also demonstrated that this scroll was very ancient, through literary demonstrations held in the presence of myself, Friar P. Marsili, the Lector of Perpignan and Friar Peter Lobi.” Who was this P. Marsili? He can be identified with “Petrus Marsilii (Mallorca),” mentioned by Kaeppeli-Pannella.20 20 Thomas Kaeppeli and Emilio Panella, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, 4 vols. (Roma: ad S. Sabinae, 1970, 1975, 1980 [Vols. 1–3]; Roma: Istituto storico domenicano, 1993 [Vol. 4]). On the contrary, Marsilii is not mentioned in the work of Célestin Douais, Essai sur l’organisation des études dans l’Ordre des frères prêcheurs au treizième et au quatorzième siècle (1216–1342): Première province de Provence—Province de Toulouse, avec de nombreux textes inédits et un état du personnel enseignant dans cinquante-cinq couvents du midi de la France (Paris– Toulouse: Picard / Privat, 1884); Célestin Douais, Les frères prêcheurs en Gascogne au xiiie et xive siècle, chapitres, couvents et notices, 2 vols. (Paris–Auch: Champion / Cocheraux, 1885).

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Perhaps we can interpret the expression “P. Marsili and Lector Perpignan” as meaning that P. Marsili was also the lector of Perpignan. The demonstration of the antiquity and rarity of the old Hebrew roll book made by Jews (or converted Jews?) to three learned exponents, probably Dominicans, seems not to have taken place in Bologna, but in the Provençal– Catalan area, before Aimerico moved to the city ​​of Bologna, where he brought the precious scroll. Let us now return to the rediscovery of the old Sefer. Thanks to a more careful examination of the scroll and a comparison with Leonello Modona’s catalog description, I immediately realized that the dating and description attributed by him to the Sefer Torah 2 should be completely abandoned. In fact, the scroll’s writing appeared to me to be a square, early Oriental or Spanish Hebrew writing, to be dated back to the first two or three centuries of the second millennium AD. Without delay, I consulted with my colleagues, experts in this field, namely Judith Olszowy-Schlanger of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, Jordan Penkower,21 of Bar-Ilan University, a leading expert in the textual and graphical characters of the Sefer Torah, and Angelo Piattelli in Jerusalem, expert in early Hebrew scrolls and Judaica antiquities. We all agreed to place the scroll in a chronological range between the late eleventh and the thirteenth century. I am grateful for this information to Martin Morard of the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, Paris, who also told that we have no chance of identifying the name “Lector Perpignani,” because the documentation on Perpignan for this period was not preserved from the year 1303, see Douais, Essai sur l’organisation des études, 230. 21 For his major studies on early Sifre Torah see J. S. Penkower, “A Sheet of Parchment from a 10th or 11th Century Torah Scroll: Determining Its Type among Four Traditions (Oriental, Sefardi, Ashkenazi, Yemenite),” in Textus 21 (2002): 235–64. J. S. Penkower, “The Text of the Pentateuch in the Masoretic Codices Written by Early Ashkenazi Sages in the 10th–12th Centuries,” in Shanaton le-ḥeqer ha-Miqra we-ha-mizraḥ ha-Qadum (annual research volume on the Bible and the Ancient Orient) [in Hebrew], 17 (2007): 279–308. J. S. Penkower, “The Bible Text Used by Rashi as Reflected in His Commentaries on the Bible,” in Rashi—The Man and His Work [in Hebrew], ed. A. Grossman and S. Japhet ( Jerusalem: Merkaz Shazar, 5769/2008), vol. 1, 99–12; J. S. Penkower, “Fragments of Six Early Torah Scrolls: Open and Closed Sections, The Layout of Ha’azinu and of the End of Deuteronomy,” in Manuscrits hébreux et arabes: Mélanges en l’honneur de Colette Sirat, Bibliologia, vol. 38, ed. J. OlszowySchlanger and N. De Lange (Brepols: Turnhout, 2014), 39–61; recently, the important work of J. S. Penkower, Masorah and Text Criticism in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Moses ibn Zabara and Menahem de Lonzano ( Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2014); J. S. Penkower, “The Ashkenazi Pentateuch Tradition as Reflected in the Erfurt Hebrew Bible Codices and Torah Scrolls,” in Erfurter Schriften zur Jüdischen Geschichte, Band 3: Zu Bild und Text im jüdisch-christlichen Kontext im Mittelalter, ed. F. Bussert, S. Laubenstein, and M. Stürzebecher (Erfurt: Bussert u. Stadeler, 2015), 118–41.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

To confirm this preliminary dating, I decided to test the scroll’s leather with two radiometric C14 tests, one conducted at the University of Salento, in Lecce, by Professor Lucio Calcagnile, director of the Center of Dating & Diagnostics Department of Innovation Engineering. A second test was carried out at the Prairie Research Institute Laboratory of the Illinois State Geological Survey Division at the Illinois University. Both results dated the gevil (leather) of the Scroll to between 1150 and 1225 AD (i.e., between the second half of twelfth and the first quarter of the thirteenth century).

CODICOLOGICAL FEATURES: PRICKING AND RULING ON THE LEATHER SECTIONS One interesting fact is the atypical perforation of the membranes, which was often performed in two stages, with two different pricked point references for the lines drawn vertically, and then with different holes as a guide for the horizontal scoring lines. This feature generally is not applied in sections of three or four columns, which have a unique horizontal ruled line. On the contrary, we can see, for example in Section 12, five columns, in which sixteen ruled vertical lines appear to define the written area for five columns. In fact, ten ruled vertical lines would have been enough. We see the same features in Sections 51 and 52, both of five columns. They also have pricked and ruled vertical lines in the external margins on the right side of Section 2, one to guide the vertical pricking and one to define the right vertical line of the first column. On the left side margin, three vertical lines are ruled: two as a guide for vertical pricking and the third internal to define the writing area of the fifth column on the left side. This kind of pricking and ruling appears to have ancient and partially inaccurate characteristics. There is also a section that shows continuous pricking for drawing the lines at the top and bottom margins, without actually being used to rule any line. As a first step, the scribe had perhaps thought to use this almost square section in one direction, but then, after making the pricking in the two external sides, decided to turn the section by 45 degrees, and pricked and ruled the other two sides.

PHYSICAL AND PALEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION Torah Scroll. Calf leather: 64 cm height x 36 m length. 58 sections sewn together: 37 of three columns (numbers 1, 4–10, 13–16, 19, 26, 29, 30–2, 34–44, 46,

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Figure 2 Four unwritten white lines between the end of Genesis and beginning of Exodus.

48–50, 53, 56–58); 18 sections of four columns (2, 3, 11, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22–5, 27, 28, 33, 45, 47, 54, 55); and only three sections of five columns (15, 54, 55). In total: 198 columns. Most columns contain 48 lines, in a very few cases 47; second half of the twelfth century to first quarter of the thirteenth century; square, early Spanish script, still showing elements of the ancient square eastern Babylonian writing. In the 58 sections of the scroll, the five books of the Torah begin and end in the following sections, columns, and lines: Genesis, Section 1: beginning of the first column up to Section 15, central column (of three), line 28. Then four unwritten white lines and the beginning of Exodus, line 33 (Figure 2), up to Section 26, central column (of three), line 29. Then four white lines and the beginning of Leviticus in line 34, up to Section 35, end of the right column (of three). Then, in the first central column, four white lines and the beginning of

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

Numbers until Section 48, central column (of three), line 19. Then, four white lines and the beginning of Deuteronomy at line 24, until the last Section 58, third column (of three), until the last line 48, and the end of the entire scroll. The skin is extremely soft. The scroll is whole, and in a good state of preservation, but is no longer anchored to its two original wooden pins, called in Hebrew ‘aṣe ḥayyim (tree of life). Ruling in a hard point from the hair side; pricking in the left and right margins of the sections, sometimes double; in some apparently reused sections, pricking is visible also in the upper and lower margins. From the point of view of paleography, the letters have a certain affinity with the fragment from the Cairo Genizah preserved in Cambridge, University Library, TS K6.78, dated to the year 1116. The scroll’s textual and graphic features testify to its copying if not in the pre-Maimonidean period (Maimonides, 1138–1204), certainly at around the same time. The yeri‘ot or leather (gevil) sections of the scroll are not homogeneous. Some show a clearer skin, are less marked, and have more faded ink than the majority of the other sections. Moreover, some of them seem to have been used differently from a first plan, presenting the pricking also in the top and lower margins, in addition to those in the left and right margins. Pricking in the two sides was applied in at least one section, currently appearing in the upper and lower sides, which were probably chosen as better before copying in the text; it was then rotated by 45 degrees for writing, and a new pricking was carried out on those margins now appearing to be left and right. The scribe of the Bologna University Library scroll follows the custom of ‫שמ״ו‬ ‫( בי״ה‬i.e., beginning six columns with these letters). He begins a column with‫ יששכר‬or Genesis 49:14, according to the Eastern custom, and not with ‫ יהודה‬or Yehudah (Genesis 49:8), as in the Sephardic and Ashkenazi traditions. Nevertheless, the Bologna Scroll does not follow the custom of wawe ha-‘ammudim (i.e., beginning each column with the letter waw). However, the scribe does follow the custom attested in Sefer Tagin—of marking tagin (i.e., the ornamental “crowns” made by tracing one, two, or three strokes over the letters to adorn certain letters)22 on various letters, as well as writing unusual letters (e.g., 22 For the tagin, see B. Goldberg, ed., Sefer ha-Tagin (Liber Coronularum) and Badde ha-Aron, with introduction by Senior Sachs and Latin introduction by J. J. L. Bargés (Paris: Ex Officina L. Guerin 1860). In this entry we read: “The tagin are a part of the Masorah. According to tradition, there existed a manual, known as Sefer ha-Tagin, of the tagin as they appeared on the twelve stones that Joshua set up in the Jordan, and later erected in Gilgal ( Josh. iv. 9, 20). On these stones were inscribed the books of Moses, with the tagin in the required letters (Naḥmanides on Deut. xxvii. 8). The baraita of  ‘Sefer ha-Tagin’ thus relates its history:

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pe lefufah—“curled” pe), but does not follow the custom of marking three tagin on the seven letters ‫שעטנז גץ‬.23 Either some fragments of the Pentateuch scrolls from the ninth to eleventh centuries found in the Cairo Genizah do not contain tagin at all, or their use is not systematic.

SCRIBAL DEVICES USED IN BUB SEFER UNKNOWN FROM LATER TORAH SCROLLS We can list briefly here the unusual characteristics present in our Sefer: 1) Addition of a final nun in the margins, appearing sixty times in the scroll, pointing to the presence of a graphic tradition different from that adopted by the scribe of the Bologna Sefer Torah concerning the spacing, the petuḥot and setumot sections (i.e., open or closed paragraph divisions). 2) Corrections added in the margins or between the lines rather than in the text. 3) Marking the place in the text where the marginal correction should be added, for example, using two dots above the line. 4) Erasing a word or several words in the text, and leaving the tops of the letters legible. 5) Adding a sign at the end of a line, using some graphic filler, in the shape of a mirror dalet, to fill in the empty space and to improve the justification on the left-hand side of the column.

‘It was found by the high priest Eli, who delivered it to the prophet Samuel, from whom it passed to Palti the son of Laish, to Ahithophel, to the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite, to Elijah, to Elisha, to Jehoiada the priest, and to the Prophets, who buried it under the threshold of the Temple. It was removed to Babylon in the time of King Jehoiachin by the prophet Ezekiel. Ezra brought it back to Jerusalem in the time of Cyrus. Then it came into the possession of Menahem, and from him was handed down to R. Neḥunya ben ha-Ḳanah, through whom it went to R. Eleazar ben ‘Arak, R. Joshua, R. Akiba, R. Judah, R. Miyasha, R. Nahum ha-Lablar, and Rab.’ … ‘The significance of the tagin is veiled in the mysticism of the Cabala. Every stroke or sign is a symbol revealing, in connection with the letters and words, the great secrets and mysteries of the universe. The letters with the tagin are supposed, when combined, to form the divine names by which heaven and earth were created, and which still furnish the key to the creative power and the revelation of future events.’” 23 The word sha‘aṭnez (‫ )שעטנז‬appears in Lev. 19:19 with the meaning: “cloth combining wool and linen, mingled stuff,” and with the addition of geṣ (‫( שעטנז ג״ץ )ג״ץ‬i.e., sha‘aṭnez geṣ) serves as an acrostic to indicate the seven letters that, according to Palestinian tradition, bear coronets or tagin in a Pentateuch liturgical scroll.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

THE WORDING OF THE HEBREW TEXT OF THE BOLOGNA PENTATEUCH The BUB scroll contains a text of very good quality, with a relatively small number of variants, most of them corrected, as compared to the accurate text of the Aleppo Codex,24 including the paragraph divisions of open and closed sections. Thank to Jordan Penkower’s book New Evidence for the Pentateuch Text in the Aleppo Codex, published in 1992,25 which shows new evidence of the Pentateuch text in this early manuscript, we now know exactly what the Pentateuch text in the Aleppo Codex looks like, and how the layout of Shirat ha-yam appears in it. The Shirat of each of the two Songs of Moses, Shirat ha-yam or “Song of the Sea” in Exodus 15 and Shir ha’azinu “Listen Heavens” in Deuteronomy 32, 24 On this very important, oldest, most complete handwritten evidence of the Hebrew Bible, see the site: http://www.aleppocodex.org/, and in particular http://www.aleppocodex.org/ links/9.html. The Aleppo Codex originally contained 491 pages: 295 have survived, and 196 have been lost. The missing parts of the Aleppo Codex are as follows: The first seven pages, which included the chapters of diqduq ha-Masora, the Masoretic grammatical commentary; One hundred and eighteen pages, containing the Pentateuch up to Deut. 28:17; Three pages from Kings (2 Kings 14:21–18:13); Three pages from Jeremiah (29:9–31:34)—and the page preceding these is partially torn; Three pages from the Twelve Prophets—Amos 8:13 to Micah 5:1 (including the books of Obadiah and Jonah); Four pages from the end of the twelve prophets—the end of Zephaniah to Zechariah 9:17 (including Haggai); Two pages from Psalms (15:1–25:1); Thirty-six pages from the Writings—from Song of Songs 3:11 until the end of the Writings (including Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah); One page containing the dedication of the Aleppo Codex; Twenty pages at the end of the Aleppo Codex, with the Masoretic annotations. We have precious information from David Cassuto, who visited the “Crown of Aleppo” in 1943. “Professor Moshe David Cassuto went to Aleppo in 1943 and examined the Keter in order to use it for the edition of the Bible, which he was publishing at that time. After overcoming many obstacles, Cassuto was permitted to examine the Aleppo Codex for four days and to make notes from it. He described the life of the Aleppo community in his journal, which Amnon Shamosh published in his book. The information about the Aleppo Codex, from Cassuto’s notes, was published by Yosef Ofer. They contain information about the open and closed portions of the Pentateuch, about the spelling of the Aleppo Codex in comparison to the received text, about the dedications of the Aleppo Codex, and the chapters of Masoretic grammar that were in the beginning of the book, about the division of the ‘orders’ in the Pentateuch, and much more!” (quotation from this site, paragraph 3.4.3: “The Evidence of the Cassuto Documents”). Bibliography: Journal of Cassuto in Amnon Shamosh, The Keter—the Story of the Aleppo Codex [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1987), 102–8; Yosef ‘Ofer, “The Aleppo Codex in the Light of the Notes of M.D. Cassuto” [in Hebrew], in Sefunot 68, no. 4 (19) (1989): 227–344. 25 J. Penkower, New Evidence for the Pentateuch Text in the Aleppo Codex [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1992); see his extended discussion on this topic there, 56–61.

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Figure 3 Layout of the verse from Deuteronomy 32:25, Bologna scroll in 67 lines without “doubling up” three lines among which the one here indicated by the black arrow.

is exactly like the Aleppo Codex. So, too, is the layout of the lines before each of these songs: five and six lines respectively, and the layout of the lines after each of these songs: five lines in both cases. Professor Aron Dotan, on the abovementioned occasion, confirmed the great proximity of the Bologna Scroll to the textual version of the Aleppo Codex, even providing an example from Shir ha’azinu in which the layout of Bologna has a better reading than that of Aleppo, which for him is meiuḥas le-fi ha-halakhah. In both the Aleppo Codex and the Bologna Scroll, the layout of verses 7, 11, and 25 of ha’azinu is arranged in exactly the same manner, “doubling up” those lines, except for the difference concerning ‫גם בחור‬. Penkower conjectures that the Aleppo Codex is the first source with the 67-line layout. The Bologna Scroll follows the Aleppo Codex layout with 67 lines, with three lines “doubled up” (vv. 7, 11, 25). However, with respect to v. 25, the scroll of Bologna puts ‫ גם בחור‬at the beginning of the next line, instead of at the end of the previous line. This is obviously more correct with respect to the hemistich—because ‫ גם בחור‬opens the new hemistich. The Yemenites, too, have a 67-line layout of ha’azinu, and put ‫ גם בחור‬at the beginning of the next line. As to antiquity, Penkower thinks that the 67-line layout in the Aleppo Codex (and the Bologna Scroll) is secondary, and that the 70-line layout, with no “doubling up” of the three verses, is the older layout, as mentioned in Masseket soferim composed during the eighth century, in Eretz Israel. This external tractate, in fact, follows the ha’azinu layout in 70 lines, which is the natural layout, without “doubling up” three lines (Figure 3). This is the case in many medieval scrolls, and is standard today in all Ashkenazi and Sephardic scrolls.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

THE QUESTION OF TAGIN—THEIR ORIGIN AND USE A total absence of tagin is attested in some fragments of an early Pentateuch scroll, probably dating back to the ninth to tenth centuries, which was discovered after having been reused in a palimpsest under the Greek text copied around the year 1000 and containing a medical work, kept in the Laurentian Library in Florence, Ms. Plut. LXXIV, n. XVII. A hypothetical reconstruction carried out by Ada Yardeni estimates that the scroll was 83 cm high, with tall columns 7.5–9 cm wide​.26 According to Colette Sirat and Ada Yardeni, the Torah scroll’s fragments T-S NS 3.21 from the Cairo Genizah, now in the Cambridge University Library, containing part of a Genesis scroll, could be the oldest Hebrew fragment in the collection and the oldest extant fragment from a Sefer Torah. In the note entitled The Oldest Hebrew Fragment in the Collection? T-S NS 3.21?, which is available on the Cambridge University Library website, we read about this fragment as follows: The scroll is early, pre-Islamic, and dates from the fifth or sixth century, says Colette Sirat. Although this is centuries earlier than the great majority of Genizah fragments, it would make it contemporaneous with some of the under scripts of the palimpsests in the Collection and its survival in the Genizah is therefore not at all impossible. Nothing is straightforward in dealing with undated manuscripts, however, and Ada Yardeni prefers to date it later, to the eighth or ninth century, still early, but not as spectacularly so. There appear to be sufficient grounds, however, to believe that an earlier dating is more likely, given the clear differences in hand, in particular, from most other Bible manuscripts found in the Genizah. It is thrilling to think that this scroll may have been in use in synagogue services hundreds of years before being consigned to the Ben Ezra Genizah.27 26 C. Sirat, with the collaboration of M. Dukan and A. Yardeni, “Rouleaux de la Tora antérieurs à l’an mille,” in Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres (Nov.– Dec. 1994): 861–87, table VII. See also S. A. Birnbaum, The Hebrew Scripts: Their Developments Over a Period of 3,000 Years, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1954–71), 1:173–4. For the absence of tagin and the use of catchwords in the early Torah scrolls, see note 22. 27 See M. P. Brown, ed., In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2006); C. Sirat, “Genesis Discovery,” Genizah Fragments 23 (April 1992): 2; C. Sirat, “Earliest Known Sefer Torah,” Genizah Fragments 24 (October 1992): 3; C. Sirat, “Rouleaux de la Tora antérieurs à l’an mille,” Comptes Rendus de séances de L’Academiedes Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (1994): 861–87; N. Tchernetska, “Greek Oriental Palimpsests in Cambridge: Problems and Prospects,” in Literacy, Education and Manuscript Transmission in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. C. Holmes and J. Waring (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 243–56;

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Figure 4 Two twice curled waw at the beginning of lines 2 and 3, and a lamed with two curls at the beginning of line 3 in a beginning of the seventeenthcentury Sefer Torah fragment owned by the author.

Another early fragment from a Sefer Torah, dated by Birnbaum to the eighth century, is the Ashkar-Gilson Hebrew Manuscript, note 2, housed in the M. Rubenstein Tate Books & Manuscripts Library, Duke University, London.28 Ada Yardeni, a leading Hebrew paleographer, published a study in 1990 in an attempt to understand the history of the use of crowns or tagin for the seven A. Yardeni, ‫שעטנ״ז ג״ץ ופרשות פתוחות וסתומות בקטע חדש של ספר בראשית מן הגניזה‬ (“The Letters ša‘aṭnez geṣ and Open and Closed Sections in a New Fragment of Genesis from the Genizah”) in Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, division D, vol. 1 ( Jerusalem, 1990), 173–80. See more at http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/fotm/ november-2010/index.html. 28 On this, see P. Sanders, “The Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript: Remnant of a Proto-Masoretic Model Scroll of the Torah,” in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 14 (2014): 1–24, with a mention of the BUB scroll, at 8–9 and 25; S. A. Birnbaum, “A Sheet of an Eighth Century Synagogue Scroll,” in Vetus Testamentum 9 (1959): 123; brief references in P. W. Flint, The Dead Sea Scrolls (Nashville: Abingdon, 2013), 38; J. Olszowi-Schlanger, “The Hebrew Bible,” in The New Cambridge History of the Bible, From 600 to 1450, vol. 2, ed. R Marsden and E. A. Matter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 19–20.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

letters that today must have the crowns, indicated by the acronym ša‘aṭnez geṣ (‫)שעטנ״ז ג״ץ‬. She examined the Hebrew text of a fragment from the Cairo Genizah (Ms. Cambridge University Library, TS NS 3.21), containing five columns from Genesis 13 and dating back to the seventh or eighth centuries CE, which is probably the oldest extant Sefer Torah in our possession. Taking into account the fact that tagin are not present in the few testimonies we have of Sifre Torah fragments copied in the first millennium CE, Yardeni believes that what later would become tagin were created as aesthetic embellishments of certain letters. Nevertheless, despite some old canonical text requirement to add the crowns to these seven letters, as in the Babylonian Talmud, Menaḥot 39b, the paleographer notes that none of the few ancient texts show the crowns or tagin as we know them from the Pentateuch scrolls of the last three or four centuries. Yardeni writes: In the Mishnah there is no mention of tagin letters, and even though the defined group of seven letters is mentioned in the Talmud, perhaps we can assume that during the time when the Rabbis stared down at the rules on letters, the group of seven letters šaṭnez geṣ was already crystallized, highlighted by an ornament similar to that of the head of the letter zayin.

Therefore, a plausible explanation of the birth of tagin is that they were originally a landscaping style of writing used by the scribes of the Sefer Torah, or decorations made by scribes (‘Iṭṭur soferim), with the intention of decorating the letters of the Pentateuch using the crown of the Torah (Keter Torah). For this purpose, they selected the seven letters ‫ ש ע ט נ ז ג ץ‬for the simple fact that they have a vertical line, over which it was possible to add the ornaments similar to the “hat” of the letter zayin. On the other hand, they excluded from the embellishments other letters, such as waw, because their top was too tight, or, similarly, the letter yod, whose head is turned sideways and is pointed at the top with a sudden sharp tip (qoṣ). According to some authors, the tagin on other letters could have been created as diacritical marks for distinguishing between confusing similar letters. As we mentioned, in the Babylonian Talmud, Menaḥot 39b, we read this passage: “seven letters must be above them, and they have three dashes sha‘aṭnez geṣ”; see also the treatise Shabbat, 105b. The external treatise Masseket soferim, which was composed between the seventh and the eighth centuries, but was not canonized in the Babylonian Talmud, gives the scribes several rules related to various aspects of the copy of Megillat Sefer Torah. The halakhot include the scriptio plena and defectiva, the size of certain letters, the textual variants, open and closed sections, the mise en page of certain texts, and conditions of kashrut of materials and writing instruments.

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Moreover, this manual for the Sefer Torah scribes suggests the spiritual attitude the scribe must have, the errors that make a scroll invalid (pasul), and a number of halakhot but, as far the crowns or tagin are concerned, there is no mention, except what the treatise says in the following passage (cap. 9, halakhah 1): ,‫ ופשוטין אותיותיו של תיבה מן כל האותיות‬,‫ב׳ שבבראשית צריך ארבעה תגין‬ ‫ שהוא הקים העולם‬or “There must be four crowns [tagin] on the beth of Be-re’shit and the letters of the word must be extended above all the other letters, because, by this means, the world came into existence.” It would seem that the collector and editor of normative materials contained in this external treatise, certifying a Babylonian tradition, the question of the embellishments of the letters, and especially the seven ša‘aṭnez geṣ, was of very little importance. There are many different manuscripts of the work, including midrashim and kabbalistic works. Among them are the Ms. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, old fund. 285, which was used for the first printed edition appearing in Paris in 1866, edited by Dov Goldberg with an introduction in Hebrew by Senior Sachs. J. J. L. Barges, professor of Hebrew at the Sorbonne, wrote a long introduction in Latin with notes and comments. The text was enriched with the publication of another unpublished manuscript from the same library in Paris (Oratoire Ms., note 65), containing the work Sefer badde Aron and Migdal Hananel, composed by Shem Tov ben Avraham ibn Ga’on, of Toledo. Another extant manuscript of this work is contained in the Maḥzor Vitry, copied in 1208, in which the scribe Simcha, a disciple of Rashi, copied a Sefer ha-Tagin on pp. 674–83. Sa‘adyah Ga’on (882–942), in his commentary to the Sefer Yetzirah, quotes the Sefer Tagin. The Sefer ha-Tagin published in Paris gives us a short list of the unusual occurrences of the tagin and other flourishes in the Pentateuch, as follows (calling the tops of the letters “heads” and the shafts “legs”):  1) alef, 7 letters each with 7 tagin.  2) bet, 4 letters with 3.  3) gimel, 3 letters with 4.  4) dalet, 6 letters with 4, and 1 letter with 1.  5) he, 360 letters with 4 horns disjoined (not penetrating inside).  6) he, 18 letters with 1 horn and joined (penetrating inside).  7) waw, 38 letters with raised heads and legs coiled forward.  8) zayin, 14 letters with only one taga in the center.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

 9) zayin, 9 letters without tagin, but with coiled heads. 10) ḥet, 28 letters with 3 horns, 2 backward and 1 forward. 11) ḥet, 37 letters with legs astride. 12) ṭet, 67 letters with 4. 13) yod, 83 letters coiled like a kaf. 14) kaf, 58 letters with 3. 15) final kaf, 74 letters with 4 horns. 16) final kaf, 3 letters with their legs coiled forward. 17) lamed, 44 letters with long necks, and tagin lowered from the top beside the neck, forming something like a yod at the lower end. 18) mem, 39 letters with 3. 19) final mem, 130 letters with 3 tagin disjoined. 20) nun, 50 letters with their hooks coiled backward. 21) final nun, 16 letters with heads coiled, but without tagin. 22) samek, 60 letters with 4 tagin disjoined. 23) ‘ayin, 17 letters with hind heads suspended. 24) ‘ayin, 8 letters with tails coiled backward. 25) ‘ayin, 6 letters with heads coiled backward. 26) pe, 83 letters with 3. 27) pe, 191 letters without tagin, but with the mouth coiled inside. 28) final pe, 11 letters with 3. 29) final pe, 3 letters with mouth coiled inside. 30) ṣade, 70 letters with 5. 31) ṣade, 2 letters without tagin (all the rest have 3 tagin). 32) final ṣade, 8 letters with 5. 33) qof, 181 letters with 3 tagin disjoined. 34) qof, 2 letters without tagin, but with legs coiled backward. 35) resh, 150 letters with 2 horns. 36) shin, 52 letters with 7 horns. 37) taw, 22 letters with higher heads than are usual. Jordan Penkower thoroughly studied the relationships between all the manuscripts of Sefer Tagin, searching for its original version in the stemma codicum, and these, summarized, are his conclusions: 1) The original form of Sefer Tagin was indeed like that found in the MS published in Paris by Barges, with the material arranged according to the letters of the alphabet.

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2) However, MS Paris is not a completely accurate text of the work (e.g., part is missing). One can find a better version of that text in the recently printed edition by Yaacov Basser in Israel in 2010. 3) The version found in one manuscript of Maḥzor Vitri (in the British Library), is not part of the original Maḥzor Vitri, and was certainly not included by Simcha of Vitri (other manuscripts of Maḥzor Vitri do not contain Sefer Tagei). 4) The version found in that one manuscript of Maḥzor Vitry is a rearrangement of the original work. As I noted above, the original work was arranged alphabetically, however, that does not make for a practical handbook for a scribe! If you are writing a verse and want to know if some letter has to be written in a certain way, you would have to go through the original work for every letter! Therefore, in Maḥzor Vitri, the scribe rearranged the material according to the Parashot hashavua (the weekly reading portions). This way you have a lot less to check each time. (This rearrangement, too, is not ideal. The best rearrangement would be to write the letters in the order of the verses of the Torah.) 5) Maimonides does not quote Sefer Tagin, but he refers to the results (i.e., he notes that certain letters take one tag and others take seven tagim, and the scribes know about this; and there are peh lefufin, etc., as scribes have copied). He notes also that one should be careful about these things. Yaacov Basser offers a new and important contribution to the reconstruction of the original Sefer Tagin in his recent study published in Israel in 2010.29 The author answered my question regarding whether we have in our hands the original Masoretic works on Tagin, and what are its relations with Eleazar of Worms’s Sefer Tagin and the manuscript of R. Shem Tov ben Avraham. My questions were as follows: 1) Does the Sefer Tagin, in fourteenth-century copy, integrated with your edition made in Israel in 2010, faithfully give us the textual 29 Yaacov Basser, ‫ צורות אותיות‬,‫ ספר תגין לרבנו אלעזר מגרמיזא‬- ‫ספר תגי ע׳׳פ כ׳׳י רבנו שם טוב בן אברהם‬ ‫ תגי תפילין‬,‫ דרשות והתגין‬,‫( המשונות והתגין‬Sefer Tagei According the Manuscript of R. Shem Tov ben Avraham—Sefer Tagin of R. Eliezer from Worms, Variated Forms of Letters and Tagin, Interpretations of Tagin, The Tagin of Tefillin) (Israel, 2010).

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

content of the Masoretes’ work composed in the eighth century as cited by Sa‘adyah between the ninth and tenth centuries? Obviously, the fact that a manuscript is relatively late is not a valid argument to demonstrate that it contains a bad version of a work, different from the original, but neither does it show the opposite (i.e., that it necessarily sets forth faithfully the work of the Masoretes of six centuries earlier). 2) In the thousands of fragments of the Cairo Genizah before the twelfth century, especially in those containing fragments of Sifre Torah, we do not find any tagin or lefufot or varied letters. How should we explain this absence? It might seem an argument e silentio, but it is similar to the way we consider the manuscripts of Sefer Tagin copied in the fourteenth century or later as faithful witnesses of the Masoretic manual of the eighth century. 3) There are two copies of Sefer Tagin extant in Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Neubauer 1567 and ms. 1566/5, attributed to Eleazar of Worms (c. 1176–1238). Are the otiyyot meshunnot, or lefufot letters, or just the tagin, mentioned in either of these late copies (one from the eighteenth century) of Eleazar’s Sefer Tagin? 4) In his preface to the commentary on the Sefer Torah, Naḥmanides also cites the letters in varied forms and their mystical value in addition to tagin. Is he returning to an ancient tradition, or is the addition of otiyyot meshunnot a novelty added to the Babylonian tradition that speaks only of crowns or tagin? Were the varied letters really a part of the Babylonian Masoretic tradition of the first millennium, and was the great Catalan kabbalist even part of the environment in which the varied letters were created? Yaacov Basser kindly answered me, for which I am very grateful, and he summarized the main results of his research as follows: Although it is not possible to know without proof if we have the original Masoretic text on Tagin, I would suggest some thoughts that contain perhaps what we may call anecdotal evidence. I suggest that Sefer Tagei was perhaps not originally intended as a guide for those who wanted to write a Sefer Torah. Rather, it was to preserve a record of the tradition of tagin, particularly because they were not always written in an actual Sefer Torah.

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1) The Talmud in Sanhedrin is of the opinion that the Torah were written in paleo-Hebrew script during First Temple times. (The archeological evidence is not necessarily proof of Sifre Torah.) Naturally, this precludes the writing of tagin. 2) The Mishnah in Megillah indicates that in Second Temple times through Mishnaic times, some, and perhaps many, Sifre Torah were written in Greek. It is quite possible that this practice was widespread, especially in Egypt. This, again, precludes the writing of tagin. 3) If every scribe was expected to write using tagin, a separate book should have been unnecessary, as he would have needed to copy from an existing Sefer Torah. Other than the Masoretes of Tiberius, it was not considered necessary to keep a record of spelling in the Torah. Nor was there a book for preserving the correct spacing of Parashiyyot, as Rambam painstakingly recorded. In addition, these were considered to invalidate a Sefer Torah. All the more so, since, for the purpose of the actual writing of a Sefer Torah, there was no need to compile a book of the tagin. More likely, Sifre Torah did not always include the tagin, hence the need to preserve the tradition. 4) As a continuation of the previous point, and potentially an argument against it, R. Sa‘adyah in his poem ‫ אשא משלי‬rallies against those ‫חסר לב‬ (Karaites?) who omit the special letters. It could be that this spurred the inclusion of the tagin in Sifre Torah. Alternatively, one could claim that they were always there and the need for a separate book was specifically to counter the Karaites. Similarly, R. Eleazar of Worms in his Sefer Tagin suggests that the Ṣadokim in Second Temple times  removed the tagin because they alluded to the Oral Law. 5) I have seen a few slides of the Genizah fragments. But from the plates that I saw, and those of the Dead Sea scroll fragments, they were not in places where the tagim of Sefer Tagin are located. In addition, it is possible that what we have are fragments of ḥumashim, which perhaps were not written the same as Sifre Torah (the Talmud distinguishes between the writing and kedusha of ḥumashim vs. a complete Sefer). 6) With regard to the Genizah fragments in the previous point, it could also be as in the first points above, that the custom in Israel, Egypt, and perhaps Italy were different due to the script and/or language issues. 7) There is also a need to clarify Ramban’s (Naḥmanides) statement that Sefer Tagin is readily available to everybody vs. R. Shem Tov, who

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lived in the same part of Spain and who describes his difficulty in acquiring a copy until he chanced upon an old German one. I believe this also to be related, but will leave my speculation for now. On your point of  ‫אותיות משונות‬, I would suggest that it is possible that they came about as a result of tagin that were curved or slanted but are really part and parcel of tagin in general. I discuss this at greater length in my book, and will not continue here because my response has already been somewhat lengthy—although I have more to say on the first subject and this too. I will just draw your attention to the part of the book where I have edited R. Eleazar of Worms’s Sefer Tagin, he clearly refers to the otiyyot meshunnot—as does the student of R. Yehuda Chasid in his list. So, the Chasidei Ashkenaz did have the otiyyot meshunnot in addition to the tagin. R. Sa‘adyah in the abovementioned poem also mentions ‫ אותיות לולות‬as is also quoted from Ben Asher’s Machberet Dikdukei Soferim. One more side item of interest. I believe that the source for the Paris Sefer Tagei is the Parma manuscript of Maḥzor Vitry. The reasons and causes for the mistakes in the Paris manuscript were discernible from that text. One more item, very important to me. I have been attempting to track down the actual manuscript of R. Shem Tov’s Tanakh. I traced as far as Zurich to a private collector, but his collection was sold through Christie’s about fifteen or so years ago, and I cannot find out who purchased it. Do you have any ideas as to how I could locate it? As I said, there is so much more to be said, but I will stop here for now.

For the time being, awaiting future research, we can accept the methodological approach according to which, by comparing strange letters copied in a Sefer Torah with the Sefer Tagin, one can understand how very close it is to the original Babylonian Masoretic manual on tagin, and consequently how old it is. Generally, the rule is that the earlier the Sefer, the more it follows the Sefer Tagin. In a Sephardic Sefer Torah auctioned some years ago, about 65 percent of the tagin correspond to the Sefer Tagin. The Sefer Torah rediscovered in the University Library of Bologna follows the Sefer Tagin in 80 percent of cases, and there are relatively few additions such as randomly entered letters.

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Figure 5 A final nun in the margin at the right of the first line at the top, and two nun with a dash on top and a curl below, at the beginning of the last two lines at the bottom.

The Sefer Torah sometimes shows features different from those demanded by the rules fixed by Moshe ben Maimon in his Hilkhot Sefer Torah (Rules for the Sefer Torah) contained in his normative work Mishneh Torah (The Second Law), composed in the second half of the twelfth century. The scribe of the Bologna scroll did not follow the same halakhic rules. Note, however, that for Maimonides the presence or absence of tagin does not affect the validity or kashrut of the scroll. These rules defined by Maimonides would become an almost unique way of writing a Sefer Torah, but not before the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries.

THE WRITING OF THE BOLOGNA SCROLL The script of the Bologna University Library Torah Scroll 2 can be defined hypothetically as early Spanish or North African type (Figure 5). At the beginning,

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

we considered the script to be a Babylonian square type, but, in the second stage of our study, Judith Schlanger proposed that the elegant square writing of this scroll could be considered an early Sephardic type as attested (albeit by very few examples) in Andalusia or North Africa. This script developed from the ancient Eastern square of Babylonian type. The scroll is written on the hair side of tanned sheets of leather (in Hebrew: gevil) with brown gallnut–metal ink. There are 48 lines of writing for 48 ruled lines, in accordance with the Oriental ruling techniques. The scroll contains several erasures and corrections, some of them made by a hand reminiscent of that of the scribe of the main text. At least in theory, this makes it unfit for liturgical use. The characters themselves contain some unusual forms, in addition to the Masoretic forms such as tagin or pe lefufah. There are several instances of an unusual shape of the letter nun, in which a curved hook is added to the extremity of the base, and descends below the baseline, and a short, straight vertical line is placed on the top of the letter’s roof. The script of this Torah scroll belongs to a conservative type, which has its beginnings in the calligraphic square of the Oriental North Eastern group, as represented in the early Masoretic codices. Used to copy Bible model codices, this type of script was continued in the eastern part of the Mediterranean and North Africa, and probably also in Muslim Spain, with little changes from the eleventh century onward. It seems that this type of script was also used in northern Spain, namely in Provence, at that time part of Catalunia. We have little evidence of this type of script, since very few manuscripts from the south of Spain or North Africa can be dated to the end of the eleventh century (TS 20h 24, Granada after 1066) and the twelfth century (BL Ms Heb. b1, fol. 10v, North Africa, 1123). In addition, we have some fragments of very early scrolls of the Pentateuch, discovered among the fragments of the Cairo Genizah, showing similar characters to those of Bologna. We have only a few fragments from six rolls of the Pentateuch from the Cairo Genizah, one among them kept in Cambridge, University Library, Ms. T-S NS 3.21. It is 58.5 cm high and about 38–40 cm long. One scribe, whose handwriting is clear and professional, writes the main text of the scroll. The letters, which are very elegant, are slightly elongated: higher rather than wider. Down strokes are relatively parallel and almost perpendicular to the baseline. Upper horizontal bars are parallel to the head-line, but the bases of beth, mem, or pe rise very slightly to the right. Written with a quill, there is little contrast in the characters’ width of horizontal versus vertical strokes. The density of the text in lines varies a great deal: the scribe has a

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Figures 6, 7 Comparison between the script of the Bologna Scroll (top) and that (below) of the Oxford manuscript, British Library Heb. b. 1, fol. 10v, which contains a part of the Babylonian Talmud, Masseket Keritot. It was copied in the year 1123 by the scribe Yosef ben Shemuel ben Efrayim from Gebel Nefusa, in North Africa; from Malachi Beit-Arié and Edna Engel, Specimen of Medieval Hebrew Script, vol. II: Sephardic Script (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2002), table 12.

tendency to squeeze the letters up at the end of a long line, or, on the contrary, to expand words or letters to fill up a line that may be too short. As expected in the classical Oriental script of good quality, and, consequently, in this early Spanish script derived from it, there is a small difference between otherwise similar letters: beth and kaph, daleth and resh, or final mem

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

and samekh. Moreover, he and ḥeth are very similar, because the left-hand down stroke of the he reaches the upper horizontal bar, as in ḥeth, instead of leaving a space between these two elements. Characteristic morphological features of the letters include an aleph whose main oblique stroke ends up on the left with a thin serif pointing upward; its right-hand stroke is composed of a short roof linked with a thinner line to the main stroke, which can be traced in one movement. The left-hand stroke, which is convex, descends from just above the middle of the main stroke to the baseline, and ends with a tiny decorative foot turning toward the outside of the letter. Another remarkable feature is the mem, whose base almost touches the left-hand down stroke, giving the letter a closed shape. Pe and final pe contain a relatively long upper bar, which is perpendicular to the head-line. The “nose” of the letter descends by a rounded line toward the middle of the letter, and then turns abruptly to the outside at the end: the curve is larger in the final pe than in the normal pe. Additional features are discreet, but include small serifs placed on the left-hand extremities of the upper horizontal bars, but also serifs descending under the bar, as in several cases of the final kaph. Lamed contains a small additional flag placed just below the top of its ascender. The elongated proportions of the letters in the BUB scroll, the extensive use of expanded letters as space fillers at the ends of the lines, and the presence of some unusually shaped letters tallies with a date of around 1200. Given the paucity of dated manuscripts from this period, the objective scientific C14 dating of the BUB scroll and its excellent state of preservation make it a precious early witness to Hebrew scribal practices and script.

THE 63 MARGINAL FINAL NUNS IN THE BOLOGNA SCROLL The best contribution to understanding the variant meaning of this letter, sometimes substituted by a zayin, is that offered by Jordan Penkower in his study presented on September 22, 2016, at the conference held at the Bologna University Library on its ancient Sefer Torah, which can be found in print in the proceedings of that workshop.30 These listed below are all the thirty sections

30 J. Penkower, “The Torah Scroll from Bologna—How It Differs from Contemporary Scrolls,” in the Proceedings of the Conference on the Bologna Sefer Torah, held at the Bologna University Library, September 22, 2016. M. Perani (ed.), The Ancient Sefer Torah of Bologna: Features And History, Leiden-Boston: Brill, expected by 2019.

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The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

Figure 8 The early Sefardic square Hebrew script of the Bologna Sefer Torah in the graphic elaboration of the author.

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(yeri‘ot) containing final nuns in the margins with their respective number indicated in round brackets: 1) (4 nuns); 2 (1); 5 (2); 15 (1); 17 (1); 18 (1 + 1 erased); 19 (3); 21 (4); 22 (1); 24 (1); 25 (2); 30 (1); 32 (3); 33 (5); 34 (4); 35 (2); 37 (1); 38 (1); 39 (1); 40 (1); 44 (3); 45 (2); 46 (1); 49 (1); 51 (1); 52 (2); 53 (1); 54 (1); 55 (7) the biggest number; 57 (1); 58 (3). Before summarizing Penkower’s new data, we will mention two other studies on this nun. In a study on the marginal nun and the Masorah qeṭannah, published in 2000,31 Innocent Himbaza clarified the meaning and value of this strange sign. An expressive example is found on sheet 55, in which this sign is written seven times, five on the right margin of the first column and two in the margin on the right of the second column (Figure 9).

Figure 9 Two of the 63 final nuns in the margin at the right, indicating a different tradition in spacing of the open–closed sections of the Hebrew Pentateuch, in the Bologna Scroll, which 80 percent follows the rules of the Masoretic Sefer Tagin.

31 On this final nun, see I. Himbaza, “Le nûn marginal et la petite Massore,” in Textus 20 (2000): 173–91; the author’s conclusion is: “On peut penser qu’il était le signe utilisé pour signaler un problème textuel avant l’introduction d’autres signes proprement massorétiques. Il est probablement un des rares signes de l’époque que se situe entre la standardisation du texte consonantique et l’époque massorétique.” See also Sanders, The Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript: Remnant of a Proto-Masoretic Model Scroll of the Torah, 1–24. For the practices of the scribes in the Qumran scrolls, see E. Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

The author’s conclusions are as follows: 1) The sign is a nun and not a zayin, as someone considered. 2) It appears in all the books of the Hebrew Bible. 3) It appears 72 times in the Codex of St. Petersburg B19A; 532 times in the Codex Cairensis of the Prophets; in the ms. of Petrograd, containing the Nevi’im aḥaronim, 40 times in Jeremiah and 60 in Ezekiel, and nine times in other biblical books; 41 times in the Pentateuch of Damask, copied around the year 1000. This nun appears also in other later codices, but increasingly less. It is not found in the Aleppo Codex. 4) It is a very ancient sign used to indicate a textual problem. 5) This would also explain its imposing size compared to other signs of the Masorah. The inverted nun, which is of the same size, would be in the same situation. 6) Although the marginal nun is used primarily in the cases of qere-ketiv, it is not limited to this single case. The author, moreover, notes that in the codex of St. Petersburg B19A, containing the oldest extant copy of the entire Hebrew Bible, copied in the year 1008 CE, there is a final nun, usually much larger than the letters of the text and with a dot above. The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia does not report this sign, while the edition of Kittel only in one case, where it indicates a qere-ketiv, pointing out a reading problem of a word or a reading variant. Different scholars have tried to explain this nun as the initial or the final letter of certain words, such as the Aramaic qariyyan reading, reader, or zitima unsure, requiring further examination, for someone reading the sign as a zayin, or nusḥa (Hebrew nusaḥ) textual variant. The marginal nun gets characteristics attesting to its importance in the manuscripts listed, which are the oldest handwritten evidence of the Hebrew Bible in our possession. If it was used normally to signal an important textual problem, its function is not limited to this case. Contrary to the inverted nun, which is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 115b–116a, the final nun never appears in the rabbinic literature. Basing himself on the mention in Sifre on Numbers 10:35 of a final nun called niqqud (i.e., vocalization using dots, dotting, pointing), Himbaza suggests the possible additional meaning of pointing out a textual or graphic problem. In a recent study, Elvira Martín-Contreras pointed out the meaning of this final nun through the examination of more than five hundred occurrences

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located in the Cairo Codex of the Prophets. In this early codex, the function of nun that appears in the margins is not related to the qere-ketiv phenomenon, and does not point out a variant reading tradition. This nun is related to the consonantal text and its function is to warn about problems extant inside the consonantal text, without explaining them. Its use in the Cairo Codex probably means that the spelling of a word could lead to a serious error in understanding.32 Of course, its meaning in the Bologna Sefer is different: the 64 final nuns it contains mark in general the fact that the scribe is informing us about the existence of a different solution and tradition in the spacing of the open–closed sections of the Pentateuch.

DIFFERENT USE OF TAGIN The evidence of the very scarce documentation in our hands, based on the mentioned early pre-Maimonidean, and perhaps pre-Islamic fragments of Megillat Torah, attests to the absence of tagin or a first attempt to begin using them,33 and later, their non-systematic use, completely different from what we know from the post-Maimonidean scrolls. The use in our scroll of tagin, and lefufot or curled letters, and the particular form of the letters, is very different from that accepted from the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries onward. In the Babylonian Talmud, Masseket Soferim, there is almost nothing about the use of tagin, with the exception of a short mention on the use of putting two tagin on the letter Be-re’shit. In the Pentateuch of Bologna, the Shirat ha-yam or “The Song of the Sea” of Exodus 15 shows the arrangement of the Oriental tradition of the Aleppo Codex, which is missing almost the entire Pentateuch up to Deuteronomy 28:17. Nonetheless, we know the layout of Shirat ha-yam in the Aleppo Codex from Jordan Penkower’s abovementioned study,34 in which he first clarified this topic. The scribe of the Bologna Scroll uses tagin with one, two, or three strokes on letters, depending on the circumstances, either on different letters, or on the same letters: h (3) and ḥet (1), in the final kaf and mem two traits that seem

32 Elvira Martin-Contreras, “The Marginal Nun in the Masora of the Cairo Codex of the Prophets: Use and Function,” Vetus Testamentum 64 (2014): 1–10. 33 Yardeni, “The Letters ša‘aṭneṣ geṣ and Open Closed Sections in a New Fragment of Genesis from the Cairo Geniza,” 173–80. 34 J. Penkower, New Evidence for the Pentateuch Text in the Aleppo Codex; see his extended discussion there on this topic, 32–50.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

almost like horns. An interesting example of these two traits is visible in the final mem in the word ‫( ואמרתם‬Genesis 45:9).

CURLED LETTERS AND THEIR VARIANT SHAPES In Exodus 23, 29, and 30, the two nuns in the words ‫( אגרשנו מפניך‬agaršennu mi-paneka) appear twice with a curled down stroke under their base turning up to the right, and getting longer and more marked than those of tagin on the top of the vertical stroke. Two cases of ṭet lefufah (curled) with an inner stroke rolled inward, and with tagin (three strokes on the left and two to the right), appear in the expression ‫( לא תטה משפט‬Exodus 23:6). Examples of a large curl, which comes down from the top of the leg of the lamed and rolls up, can be seen in the lamed of words ‫( לא ראו‬lo’ ra’u), Genesis 9:23, in that of ‫( לו בנו‬lo beno) of Genesis 9:24, and in the two lameds at the beginning and at the end of the term ‫( לישמעאלים‬la-Yyishme‘elim) of Genesis 37:27, while a nice curl turning to the right on the final nun can be seen twice in the word ‫( כנען‬Kena‘an) in Genesis 9:26 and 27. The same use of tagin is attested in a codex of the twelfth century, ms. Valmadonna 1, in the Shirat ha-yam.

ERASURE In the Sefer Torah of Bologna there are some incomprehensible erasures, the meanings of which cannot be understood, because they do not contain wrong words, and are not replaced by anything else. In Numbers 18:13, the word ‫יהיה‬ following ‫ יביאו ליהוה לך‬was rewritten after an erasure. In Numbers 31:3, after the first ‫אלף למטה‬, the copyist forgot the second part of the verse ‫אלף למטה לכל‬ ‫ מטות ישראל תשלחו לצבא‬for omoioarkon or words beginning with the same initial letter, and added it in the margin. In Section 53, after the verse of Deuteronomy 17:12, the entire verse 13 ‫ ישמעו ויראו ולא יזידון עוד וכל העם‬was forgotten by the scribe, and it was added in the right margin in letters, written not so clearly as the other additions. As Jordan Penkower showed, in several places, when the scribe erased a dittography, he erased the “body” of the letters, but left the top of the letters. This was to show that there was an erasure at this place, and that he did not intend to add an empty space of an open or closed parasha (i.e., if he erased the letters completely, then an extra empty space would occur, and that would signify a parasha petuha or a parasha setuma).

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Figure 10 Erasure of verses 16–20 in Leviticus chapter 18, where the text is cancelled and not substituted by any correction or rewriting.

An impressive case is visible in Section 32, containing Leviticus 18, where the five verses after verse 15 (i.e., vv. 16–20), are cancelled in the following five lines, not substituted by any correction, and the text continues with verse 21 (Figure 10). As Saverio Campanini claimed, this erasure, certainly made after 1530, has to be understood in the context of the embittered disputations related to the divorce of Henry VIII.35

GRAPHIC FILLERS The scribe quite frequently uses a variety of graphic fillers to justify the text on the left side of the columns. The one most frequently used looks like a small mirror dalet (Figures 11a–g and 12). Some examples can be seen after the words ‫ השקיני נא‬in Genesis 24:43; after the word ‫( ויקראו‬Genesis 24:58), after ‫( בת בתואל הארמי‬Genesis 25:20), and in the next verse after the words ‫ותהר‬ ‫( רבקה אשתו‬Genesis 25:21); again after ‫ לבניו אחריו‬of Exodus 29:29; after the words ‫( עשה לשניהם‬Exodus 36:29), and in other cases. I found a graphic filler 35 S. Campanini, “The “Ezra Scroll” of Bologna Vicissitudes of an Archetype Between Memory and Oblivion,” in print in the Proceedings of the Conference on the Bologna Sefer Torah, held in Bologna, September 22, 2016 in Mauro Perani, ed., The Ancient Sefer Torah of Bologna: Features and History (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2020), forthcoming.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

similar to those of the Bologna Scroll in a fragment from an Ashkenazi Bible of the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, reused as book binding in Bologna, State Archives, Ms. B. XV.5 containing a part of Jeremiah 42.36 Other graphic fillers used by the scribe in the Bologna Scroll are in the shapes of hyphens, commas, or dots (see below, Figures 11a–g).

Figure 11a Genesis 44:13—Section 13: small mirror dalet.

Figure 11b Genesis 46:20—Section 14: hyphen.

Figure 11c Exodus 26:29—Section 25: small mirror dalet.

Figure 11d Exodus 7:27—Section 17: comma. 36 M. Perani and S. Campanini, “I frammenti ebraici di Bologna. Archivio di Stato e collezioni minori,” Inventari dei Manoscritti delle Biblioteche d’Italia, col. 108 (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1997), 47.

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Figure 11e Exodus 24:14–17—Section 21: hyphen (first line) and a small mirror dalet (last line).

Figure 11f Leviticus 23:7—Section 33: small mirror dalet.

Figure 11g Deuteronomy 22:29 and 23:1—Section 55: dot.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

Figure 12 One of the graphic fillers used by the scribe, it looks like a small mirror dalet at the end of the fifth line on the left, and five words from Exodus 26:21, skipped for omoioarkon, or “same beginning” of ha-eḥad, and written in the margins on the left of the first line.

CATCHWORDS In three sections, 23, 24, and 25, in the lower margin on the left, there is a catchword, a very unusual element for a Sefer Torah, especially if unknown. For example, at the end of Section 23, ending with the word ‫ ויצא‬of Exodus 34:24 ‫ העגל‬/ ‫הזה ואמר להם למי זהב התפרקו ויתנו לי ואשלכהו באש ויצא‬, the word ‫העגל‬, which is the first word of the following Section 24, is anticipated in the margin below on left (Figure 13). Similarly, at the end of Section 24, the last line of which contains Exodus 36:25 ‫ולצלע המשכן השנית לפאת צפון עשה עשרים קרשים‬, the first word ‫ וארבעים‬of the following verse of Exodus 36:26 starting the following section, even if faded and barely readable, is anticipated in the lower margin on the left as well (Figure 13). Another catchword is placed at the end of Section 25 containing Exodus 39:33 ‫ויביאו את המשכן אל משה את האהל ואת כל כליו קרסיו‬ ‫ קרשיו בריחו בריחיו ועמדיו ואדניו‬up to the words ‫ואת כל‬, where the following word of Section 26 ‫ כליו‬is also anticipated.

ADDITION OF MATRES LECTIONIS AND OTHER LETTERS Below is a list of several verses to which the scribe added some words matres lectionis or other letters. Numbers 7:29, the word ‫‘ עתדים‬attudim, which in the Masoretic text has the scriptio defectiva, without a waw, then added a waw, Section 37;

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Figure 13 Catchword in cursive script at the end of the Section 23, ending with Exodus 34:24, where the first word of the next section, ha-‘egel, written in semicursive script and barely readable, is anticipated in the margin below on left.

Figure 14 Catchword at the end of Section 24 ending with Exodus 36:25 the first word of the following section, we-arba‘im, even if faded, is written in semi-cursive script, anticipated in the lower margin on the left. Numbers 10:4, in the word ‫ הנשיאים‬added the first forgotten yod, Section 39; Numbers 10:6, in the word ‫ המחנות‬added the waw, Section 39; Numbers 13:24, in the word ‫ האשכול‬added the waw, Section 40; Numbers 13:26, in the word ‫ ויראום‬added the penultimate waw, Section 40; Numbers 13:28, in the word ‫ בצרות‬added the waw, Section 40; Numbers 13:29, in three occurrences of ‫ יושב‬added waw, Section 40; Numbers 14:31, word ‫ והביאתי‬added the first yod, Section 40;

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered Numbers 14:33, in ‫ זנותיכם‬added waw, Section 40; Numbers 15:39, the word ‫ לציצת‬skipped, has been added in the margin, Section 41; Numbers 17:2, in the word ‫ מחתות‬added waw, Section 41; Numbers 17:21, in ‫ מטותם‬added waw, Section 42; Numbers 28:24, in ‫ עולת‬added waw, Section 45; Numbers 30:9, in ‫ אישה‬yod, Section 46.

Reversed nun Numbers 10:34, in rows 11:14 from the top of the center column, two mirror nuns appear after the words ‫בנסעם מן המחנה‬, Section 39. Numbers 10:36, two mirror nuns after ‫אלפי ישראל‬, Section 39. In Section 33, in the first column beginning at the top, next to the word ‫אני יי מקדשו‬, Leviticus 21:15, in the right margin there is an inconspicuous final nun and a small hidden ‫י‬.

Letters with points above Numbers 21:30, the relative pronoun ‫ ֗א ֗ש ֗ר‬has three dots above the letters, Section 43; Numbers 29:15 at the beginning of the verse in the expression ‫ועשרון עשרון לכבש‬, the first ֗‫וע ֗ש ֗רו֗ ן‬ ֗ has dots above all letters except the initial waw, Section 45; Deuteronomy 29:28, there is a dot over all the letters of the two words ֗‫לנ֗ ו֗ ו֗ ֗ל ֗בנ֗ י֗ נ֗ ו‬,֗ as it appears in the main editions of the Hebrew Bible, Section 57.

WAS THE BOLOGNA SEFER TORAH A LITURGICAL SCROLL USED IN A SYNAGOGUE? The BUB scroll contains several elements that were not permitted in the scrolls copied later in the last five centuries, following the canonization established in the sixteenth century by Joseph Caro in his halakhic work Shulḥan ‘arukh, regarding how a scroll of the Pentateuch should be written for liturgical use. In such scrolls, only consonantal text without vowels and accents could be written; words in the margins were not permitted, or deletions or additions of forgotten words, and also graphic phillers, catchwords make the scroll invalid or pasul. Conversely, in the scrolls of the Torah copied during the first millennium CE and up to the thirteenth century, according to the rules, the text must be only consonantal without vowels and accents. But as for other scribal features, it is likely similar to a copy

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of a codex of the Bible or of another work. The Sefer Torah of Bologna has several words in the margins, as well as corrections and erasures, graphic phillers, and catchwords, and in another Italian scroll, mentioned by Malachi Beit-Arié, there is even a dated colophon (see here below in footnote 40). Professor Aron Dotan, in his address as respondent at the conference I delivered at Tel Aviv University on November 5, 2014, strongly highlighted the enormous importance of the excellent text of the Bologna Sefer Torah. In his opinion, however, the Bologna Scroll could never have been used as a liturgical scroll in a synagogue, since it displays many characteristics that cannot be accepted by the strict rules for writing a liturgical Pentateuch, which make it invalid or pasul for reading in a synagogue. Someone suggested that it be considered as a tiqqun soferim37—a corrected model for copying other scrolls. However, the large size of the scroll would make such a use very difficult and cumbersome. I think that the rejection of its role in liturgy is founded on our belief that, since antiquity and the Middle Ages up to modern times, the rules and the halakhot for copying a Torah scroll have remained the same, as known from the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries onward. However, the scientific evidence demonstrates that this was not at all the case. If we examine the scarce amount of documentation in our possession without prejudice, for the centuries prior to the canonization of the rules, which became universally accepted later, such a judgment no longer seems so clear-cut. Religious and theological prejudices lead us to believe that even during the first millennium CE, the scribes would use the same rules, graphic characteristics, and ornamental devices that we know in modern and contemporary times. From the scarce documentation available among the scroll fragments of the Cairo Genizah, and from the fragmentary sections from Torah scrolls extant from the last centuries of the first millennium CE, or the first centuries of the second millennium, it appears that they totally lack tagin or that they use them sparingly. Moreover, their limited use does not follow the Palestinian tradition as described in the Mishnah and Talmud, treatise Menaḥot 29b. On the contrary, the earliest manuscripts we know either do not use tagin at all, or use them according to the Babylonian tradition, partially preserved in the late medieval compilations entitled Sefer Tagin. The Bologna Scroll follows this Babylonian tradition, and uses distinctive forms of letters such as curled or ornamented forms. 37 See J. Peretz, The Pentateuch in Medieval Ashkenazi Manuscripts, Tikkunei Soferim and Torah Scrolls: Text, Open and Closed Sections and the Layout of the Songs [in Hebrew] (PhD thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 2008), 249–82; S. Frensdorff, ed., Okhlah Ve’okhlah (= MS Paris 148) (Hanover, 1864; reprint Tel Aviv, 1969).

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

We do indeed have some examples of pentateuchal scrolls that use graphic fillers, catchwords at the ends of the sections, and the final nun in the margins to indicate various textual graphic characteristics, among them a variant tradition in the spacing of the open and closed sections of the Pentateuch, and even a colophon.38 The question remains open, and we hope that further investigation will clarify these problems, which indicate that the halakhah of the Sefer Torah we know today is not at all that which was followed by the scribes from ancient times until the late Middle Ages.

CONCLUSION Why is the BUB scroll so important? 1) It is, up to present times, the oldest whole Sefer Torah in our possession. It presents the scribal tradition, layout of text, and letter ornamentation or tagin and curled letters according to the Babylonian tradition, as described in Sefer Tagin, an early Oriental tradition that—even if we do not know if it was actually used by the scribes in Babylon from the eighth to the eleventh century, or if it was only theorized, as the fragments of the Cairo Genizah seem to demonstrate—later disappeared from the eleventh to twelfth centuries onward, when the gaonic period finished, and its heritage was transferred to the Western world. 2) The scroll presents a Hebrew text very close to that of the Aleppo Codex (tenth century), which, unfortunately, was mutilated in 1947, especially in the initial and final parts, and almost all of the Pentateuch. 3) From the scriptural–graphic characters of the Bologna Scroll it would seem, as in the fragments of the oldest Sifre Torah found in palimpsest or in the Cairo Genizah39 in the first millennium and, probably until the eleventh to twelfth centuries, that there was no difference between how scribes copied any other manuscript and a Sefer Torah, excluding the text, which in the liturgical scrolls could only be consonantal. 38 See note 36. 39 See M. Dukan, “La Bible hébraïque: Le codices copiés en Orient et dans la zone séfarad avant 1280,” Bibliologia 22 (Turnhout, 2006); M. Sokoloff and J. Yahalom, “Christian Palimpsests from the Cairo Geniza,” Revue d’Histoire des Textes 8 (1978): 109–32; C. Taylor, Hebrew–Greek Cairo Genizah Palimpsests from the Taylor-Schechter Collection Including a Fragment of the Twenty-second Psalm according to Origen’s Hexapla (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900); S. A. Birnbaum, “A Sheet of Eighth Century Synagogue Scroll,” Vetus Testamentum 9 (1959): 123.

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The discovery of additional ancient Torah scrolls and a more accurate study of their graphic scribal devices and characteristics could be a great revelation in relation to how the scribes copied the Sefer Torah during the first millennium CE and until the twelfth century. This seems to be confirmed by what Malachi Beit-Arié writes in a recent online prepublication of his work Hebrew Codicology. In a note, the author refers to a Sefer Torah, almost complete lacking only of a section, copied in the year 1091–92, found in the genizah of an Italian synagogue and with a colophon written by the copyist at the end.40 This Sefer Torah, kept in a private collection, apparently uses graphic fillers at the end of the line, on the left, and the catchwords in all its sections and the nun in the margins as a matter of course. The writing of this early Italian Sefer Torah seems to be very close to that of some eleventh-century fragments of the Talmud Yerushalmi, probably copied in the Apulian Otranto School of Hebrew copyists that I found reused at the Bologna State Archives, in bookbinding fragments 564, and 574, and recently two new entire bifolios in the same Bologna State Archives, Hebrew fragments 651 and 652.41 Some scholars deem that the inclusion of graphic fillers, of catchwords, and scribal devices used differently from the halakhah we have known from the last four to five centuries may indicate that a scroll was not liturgical. I do not agree, however. As already pointed out, according to the very scarce evidence at our disposal, during the first millennium, for a scribe there was not a great deal of difference between copying a codex or a Sefer Torah. The unique differences were the text, which was solely consonantal, copied on a vellum scroll, with the layout of certain parts and the spacing for open or closed sections, 40 M. Beit-Arié, Hebrew Codicology: Historical and Comparative Typology of Hebrew Medieval Codices Based on the Documentation of the Extant Dated Manuscripts in Quantitative Approach  [in Hebrew], continuation of notes 31 and 32, at the present time (the prepublication is changeable), 346. The book is available online at http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/Hebrew/ collections/manuscripts/hebrewcodicology/Documents/Hebrew-Codicology-continuously-updated-online-version.pdf. In the presentation we read that the prepublication is “also accessible through the website of SfarData, the Hebrew–English database of the Hebrew Palaeography Project of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, which is integrated within the website of the National Library of Israel (sfardata.nli.org.il): An English version is in preparation. Meanwhile, a table of contents of the chapters and the main sub-chapters and an extensive summary of major codicological practices in English are accessible”; the second site is http://sfardata.nli.org.il/sfardataweb/frmCodicology.aspx?language=E. 41 See M. Perani and A. Grazi, “La ‘scuola’ dei copisti ebrei di Otranto (sec. XI). Nuove scoperte,” Materia giudaica XI/1–2 (2006): 13–41; and Perani and Campanini, I frammenti ebraici di Bologna, 119–20 and Figures 1–3.

The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered

probably without tagin and curled letters until the eighth century, and following that according to the Masoretic manual in the Aramaic Sefer Tagin.

MODERN TECHNOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF BIBLICAL SCROLLS A new technique, recently perfected by computer scientists at the University of Kentucky, has made it possible to read scrolls that cannot be unrolled by scanning them. We refer to the case of an ancient scroll found in Ein Gedi, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, half a century ago. The carbonized parchment could not be opened or read, until it recently became possible with the help of a computer. The news of this achievement was announced on September 23, 2016. The scroll, containing the first two chapters of the book of Leviticus, has a consonantal text identical to that of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible. The computer scanned these fragments and displayed the writing from the digital image without opening the scroll. “This is the earliest evidence of the exact form of the medieval text,” Prof. Emanuel Tov said, referring to the Masoretic text. According to the experts, this new method may make it possible to read other ancient scrolls, including several Dead Sea scrolls. A C14 test indicates that the Ein Gedi scroll was copied around AD 300, although Ada Yardeni suggests that this scroll should be dated to between AD 50–100.42 Certainly, the research on these little known aspects of the writing tradition of the Sefer Torah has big surprises in store for us. The BUB Sefer Torah has provided and will continue to provide significant information, and will shed considerable new light on this field. The rediscovery of the Bologna Scroll has provided tremendous impetus to the scientific world, in its efforts to undertake a thorough study of the history, development, and characters of the Sefer Torah, a research field up to now largely overlooked. Arousing strong curiosity, the Bologna “Ezra” Scroll has become a kind of beacon, motivating scholars with its light finally to examine the history, text, layout, ornamentation, and paleography of an object as holy as it has been neglected for centuries by scientific research.

42 Nicholas Wade, “Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll,” published in Science Advances; see online: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/science/ancient-sea-scrolls-bible.html?_r=1.

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CHAPTER 3

Palestinian and Babylonian Traditions in Italy at the Outset of the Middle Ages: The Yerushalmi in the Writings of R. Isaiah di Trani (the Rid) YARON SILVERSTEIN

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

R

. Isaiah di Trani, known by his acronym the Rid (1165–1240),1 was recognized as one of the greatest Italian sages and as an important commentator on the Babylonian Talmud (Bavli) already in his own generation.2 Most of his Talmudic study took place in Germany, and he made one brief visit to Palestine.3 The manner of Talmudic methodology and discourse customary in France and Germany had a significant impact on his intellectual contributions throughout his scholarly career. This can be demonstrated, for example, by the fact that R. Yom Tov Ishbili (the Ritba) conferred on him the title “the Ashkenazi”

1 I. Ta-Shema, Studies in Medieval Rabbinic Literature, vol. 3 ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2006). 2 See Responsa of R. Meir of Rotenberg 2:339. See also R. Yitzchak ben Moshe (the Or Zarua), Sefer Or Zarua, Part 1, 753. 3 J. N. Epstein posited that during this visit the Rid became aware of the Talmudic commentary of R. Barukh, son of R. Yitzhak of Halab. See J. N. Epstein, “Rabbenu Barukh of Halab,” Tarbiz 1 (1940): 49–69 ( = J. N. Epstein, Studies in Talmudic Literature and Semitic Languages [ Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988], 2, 738).

Palestinian and Babylonian Traditions in Italy

(commentary on Shabbat 150a; Rosh Hashanah 6a).4 Modern academic scholars essentially have agreed with the Ritba’s appellation. According to I. Ta-Shema, the Rid should be categorized as a Franco-Ashkenazi sage, from the school of medieval rabbinic sages known as the Tosafists.5 We will return to this categorization later. Due to the relative ease of travel from Palestine to the southern shores of Italy in medieval times, Italian Jewry served as a conduit for Palestinian traditions6 to be transmitted from Palestine and its environs to Western Europe. This connection was manifested, for instance, in the liturgical connection7 between southern Italy and Palestine.8 The Jews in Italy maintained contact with the Jews of Palestine throughout the period.9 The rise of Jewish communities in southern and northern Italy resulted from the decreased importance of Rome between the fifth and ninth centuries.10 During the seventh and eighth centuries, there was a resurgence of interest in Torah study as well as in the 4 See also Epstein, Studies, 2, 693. We should also note, according to A. Grossman, that the Tosafists’ approach evolved from the academies of the eleventh-century Ashkenazi sages. See A. Grossman, The Early Sages of France ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2005), 439–54. 5 Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 9. 6 There are some vague and unclear traditions concerning “Roman commentaries” on portions of the Bavli (the Babylonian Talmud), and various questions that were addressed to the sages of Rome. See B. Roth, History of the Jews in Italy, trans. G. Ben-Yehuda ( Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1962), 61. Scholars understand these “Roman commentaries” to be a nickname for the commentaries of R. Hananel. See Ta-Shema, Studies in Medieval Rabbinic Literature, vol. 1 ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2004), 5n6; S. Friedman, “Rashi’s Talmudic Commentaries and the Nature of their Revisions and Recension,” Rashi Studies, ed. Z. A. Steinfeld (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1993), 173n141. For a discussion regarding the spread of Torah through France and Germany due to the arrival in Germany of the Kalonymos family from Italy and the dating of this tradition, see M. Gidman, Torah and Life: In Western Countries in the Middle Ages (Tel Aviv: Ad, 1968), 5. We should note that the geographical term “greater Greece” is identical to the term “southern Italy.” See Epstein, Studies, 2, 703. 7 Roth, History, 45–6. The earliest record of Italian Jewry can be found in the story of the travels of Benjamin Metudela, who toured Italy between the years 1160–65; see Roth, History, 52. We should also note that, on occasion, scholars have attributed Palestinian traditions to Italy. See for instance, M. Bar-Ilan, Astrology and Other Sciences among the Jews of Israel in the Roman-Hellenistic and Byzantine Periods ( Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2011), 266. 8 R. Bonfil, “Between Eretz Israel and Babylonia,” Shalem 5 (1987): 20. Bonfil further notes (p. 16) a custom reflected in Megillat Ahima’az, which demonstrates that the Jews of southern Italy observed a stringency concerning the bread of Gentiles, and therefore cooked bread in their own homes. 9 Roth, History, 11. We can demonstrate this connection in a number of ways. For instance, the yeshivot in Italy were called “haburah,” like the yeshivot in Palestine (see Flusser, The Book of Josippon, 225, line 75). 10 Roth, History, 37.

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study of Hebrew11 among the Jews of southern Italy. This center of rabbinic activity earned significant admiration from other important centers of rabbinic study, and even from R. Yaakov Tam (Rabbenu Tam), one of the leading Tosafists.12 According to Reuven Bonfil,13 the story of Aaron the Babylonian’s arrival in Italy, as told in Megillat Ahima’az, demonstrates the cultural shift that occurred in southern Italy in the mid-ninth century, from being a land under Palestinian rabbinic influence to one under Babylonian rabbinic influence.14 We should note that many Babylonian gaonic traditions had reached southern Italy already in the generation before Ahima’az (1017–54).15 Nevertheless, Bonfil claims, somewhat paradoxically, that after the Babylonian traditions had taken hold in the region the negative attitude toward the Palestinian tradition ended, as well as the alienation that had been directed at Italian Jews who observed earlier Palestinian traditions.16

11 Ibid., 43. The Kaufman 50 manuscript of the Mishnah, usually considered the “best” mishnaic manuscript, is from twelfth-century southern Italy. See M. Bet Aryeh, “Ms Kaufman of the Mishnah (Budapest A50)—Its Origin and its Time,” Collections of Articles about the Language of Sages 2 ( Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1980): 82–94. The Italian sages constantly copied manuscripts. See, for example, M. Kahana, “The Relationship of Ms. Vatican 60 of Bereshit Raba to its Parallels,” Teuda, 11 (1996): 52. 12 Rabbenu Tam, Sefer Ha-Yashar, Hiddushim ( Jerusalem, 1959), 90. According to S. Immanuel, Fragments of the Tablets: Lost Books of the Tosafists ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2000), 74, there is no evidence that the sages of southern Italy recognized the authority of Rabbenu Tam. Compare E. E. Urbach, The Tosafists: Their History, Writings and Methods ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1980), 67–8. 13 Bonfil, “Between,” 1–30. 14 This transition did not cause the sages of Italy totally to adopt Babylonian customs. See R. Bonfil, Myth, Rhetoric, History? A Study in the Chronicle of Ahima’az, Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry ( Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Centre for Jewish History, 1989), 120–21. The discussion concerning the blowing of the shofar is cited in Shibole Haleket (Seder Rosh Hashanah 301). Another example can be found in the identification of the custom of reading for musaf the Torah portion appropriate to that festival as “an enactment of the geonim, the heads of the Yeshivot, of blessed memory,” and the definition of this custom as “a fine and acceptable custom” (Sefer Hamakhria, 31). 15 See for instance, Bonfil, Myth, 100–101. The institution of rabbinic ordination (semikhah) reached Italy, as it did the entire Jewish world, by way of the Babylonian geonim. See Bonfil, The Rabbinate in Renaissance Italy ( Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2005), 24. 16 Bonfil, Myth, 118. According to A. Grossman, “The Relationship of Early Ashkenazi Jews to Eretz Israel,” Shalem 3 (1981): 57–92, the connection between Palestine and the centers of Torah learning in Germany and Italy was constantly maintained. According to S. Immanuel, the Sefer Ha-Yerushalmi, which R. Samuel b. Natronai brought to Ashkenaz from Italy, should also be attributed to this period (Immanuel, Fragments, 78).

Palestinian and Babylonian Traditions in Italy

Although the precise date is not known, the Rid immigrated to southern Italy and established his residence in the city of Trani.17 In so doing, he established ties between the district of Apuglia, located in the state of Bari18 (in which the city of Trani was located), and the Rhineland, where he had previously studied.19 In his writings, the Rid cites traditions from other lands such as Romania and Greece.20 Among the Rid’s students were Tzedekiah b. Avraham of the Anavim family in Rome, the author of the Shibolei Haleket, and the brother of Benjamin the liturgical poet (thirteenth century).21 This historical overview shows that, during this period, a center of Torah study formed in southern Italy in which two methods of learning and two methods of halakhic ruling coexisted. The question is raised as to how this coexistence was reflected in the attitude toward the Yerushalmi. The test case we have used to investigate this issue is the Rid’s use of the Yerushalmi. In the following chapter, we will briefly review the Rid’s literary corpus. Following this, we will deal with the Rid’s use of the Yerushalmi, in an attempt to understand his approach to the Yerushalmi through his juxtaposition of traditions—and how this reflects the distinguishing characteristics of this study center.

R. ISAIAH DI TRANI’S LITERARY CONTRIBUTION Ta-Shema describes the Rid’s literary contribution in the following manner: R. Isaiah [of Trani] was a prolific writer who occupied himself with most avenues of Torah learning: biblical interpretation, commentaries on the Mishnah, the Talmud and the halakhic midrashim, the issuing of systematic halakhic rulings, and the composition of responsa and halakhic monographs.22

17 In the twelfth century, Benjamin Metudela (see above, note 7) writes about the existence of two hundred Jews in the city. 18 With regard to this location, see the bibliography composed by Immanual, Fragments, 75n111. 19 According to S. Immanuel, the first emissary from southern Italy to Germany was R. Shmuel ben Natronai (Immanuel, Fragments, 80–81). 20 Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 9. The Rid even notes things that he saw in Palestine (Piske Ha-Rid, Menahot, 94, 107). See also the Responsa of Benjamin Zeev (305): “Similarly, R. Isaiah of Trani wrote of the Roman custom to recite the marital blessing at the time of betrothal.” 21 Roth, History, 95. 22 Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 24.

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The Rid’s main literary corpus consists of his collection of halakhic rulings,23 which have survived in the following manuscripts: Oxford (Neubauer 35/634); Paris 364; British Museum 521 and British Museum 522. His second most significant literary contribution, the Tosafot Ha-Rid, survived in only one full manuscript, Sasson 557,24 and several fragments that were discovered in the European genizah.25 The Tosafot Ha-Rid were composed in several editions.26 Each of these editions can stand as an independent work, and includes a system of internal references.27 See, for example, the title of the Tosafot Ha-Rid on Bava Kama: “The third edition, in which is included some material from the fourth edition.” Three editions of tractate Berakhot were written; the edition found in the printed edition is the third.28 For this reason, the book containing the Tosafot Ha-Rid was described as “The Book of Editions.”29 S. Abrahmson writes that “he [the Rid] is unique among medieval rabbis in that the editions of his work were composed one after the other, and emendations were not added to each edition, as was the case with the commentaries of Rashi.”30 In his writings, the Rid contributed significantly to the establishment of the Franco-German intellectual and halakhic tradition in Italy. He also played a significant role in the composition of the Tosafot in Italy.31 Furthermore, the Rid was in close contact with the Italian Tosafist, R. Elazar b. Shmuel of Verona.32 In addition, the Rid wrote notes on the Torah that were published for the first time by R. Hayyim David Azulai (the Hida) in his work P’nei David (Livorno, 1792). These notes were compiled from the Rid’s commentary on

23 See R. Hutner’s introduction to Piske Ha-Rid on Berakhot and Shabbat ( Jerusalem, 1964), 12. 24 Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 70. 25 Ibid., 3, 55–62. See also Immanuel, Fragments, 47n154. 26 I. Ta-Shema, “The ‘Open’ Book in Medieval Hebrew Literature: The Problem of Authorized Editions,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library 75, no. 3 (1993): 17–24. 27 Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 28. For a list of the number of extant editions for each tractate, see ibid., 30–5. 28 R. I. Hutner, Introduction to Berakhot and Shabbat, 15. 29 R. Azariah de-Rossi, Meor Enayim, Imre Bina, 244, 369. 30 S. Abrahmson, “Mehem Ubehem (Mehkar BeToldot HaSefer),” in Sefer Shalom Sivan ( Jerusalem: Kiryt-Sefer, 1980), 11. Nevertheless, there remains some confusion in the citations within these editions. See S. Abrahmson, “Concerning Sefer Haleket of Rabbi Isaiah of Trani,” Sinai 65 (1969): 107–8. 31 Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 70. 32 Urbach, Tosafot, 435–6; Epstein, Studies, 2, 670–6 identified some fragments of Italian Tosafot.

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the Torah.33 He also composed commentary on portions of the Tanakh. It is likely that he wrote Sefer ha-makhria (a collection of brief halakhic discussions) at the end of his life, since this book is not mentioned in any of the editions of his other work.34 Another of his works, Sefer ha-leket, is quoted partially in his other compositions.35  Taking all the Rid’s writing into consideration, we can point to some general characteristics. His halakhic writings include both the type of commentaries characteristic of Rashi as well as the innovative style of commentary characteristic of the Tosafists.36 Furthermore, we can understand his halakhic literature as a sort of way station between Talmudic commentary intended to issue halakhic rulings and commentary whose sole purpose is the intellectual explication of the text.37 A key difference between the Rid and other Tosafists is the fact that the Rid did not operate within a community of fellow sages or a yeshiva. What appear to be disputes in his writing are in actuality mostly with himself.38 Like other Franco-Ashkenazi sages, the Rid did not hesitate to emend the text of the Talmud when he believed it was incorrect.39 In his halakhic literary works, the Rid made extensive use of a wide variety of sources,40 including the Yerushalmi—which we will deal with at length below. The Rid calls Rashi “the teacher ‫ ”המורה‬and makes frequent references to Rashi’s commentary.41 According to Y. Malahi, it is possible to find in Piske Ha-Rid 33 Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 20–3; Commentary of the Rid on the Tanakh ( Jerusalem, 1959); H. D. Shavel, ed., Nimuke Humash of Rabbenu Isaiah de-Trani ( Jerusalem, 2003). 34 Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 28; Rav S. A. Wertheimer, ed., Sefer Hamakhria, Pesakim and Halakhot ( Jerusalem, 1998). 35 See S. Abrahmson, “Concerning Sefer Haleket,” 103–8. 36 Introduction of S. Y. Zevin to Piske ha-Rid on Berakhot and Shabbat ( Jerusalem, 1964). 37 Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 26. 38 Ibid., 27. 39 Ibid., 3, 49. See, for instance, Tosafot Ha-Rid, Bava Kama 102a. 40 See H. Gross, “Jesaja b. Mali da Trani,” ZFHB 13 (1909): 46–58, 87–92, 118–23, 188–9. 41 See, for instance, the following quotation from Tosafot Ha-Rid, Eruvin 52b: “Everything that I have written in this second edition is nothing, for the words of the Teacher (Rashi) are the main [interpretation].” An example of a case in which the Rid employs the Yerushalmi to disagree with Rashi can be found in Piske Ha-Rid on Berakhot (140): “The reasoning of the Teacher leads to the conclusion that there is a difference between ten and three. That when it comes to [constituting a group of] three, a minor does not count … But this doesn’t seem correct to me … Furthermore, it explicitly says in Yerushalmi (Berakhot 7:2): ‘R. Berehya said in the name of R. Yaakov bar Zavdi: They asked in front of R. Simon: Just as they say that he (the minor) can count as a tenth, so too they say here that he can count as a third, for just as there, when they say God’s name, he can be counted, here, when they don’t say God’s name, all the more so. Therefore, R. Yehoshua ben Levi says ten, not to exclude

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an Italian version of Rashi’s commentary on the Bavli, one that differs from the Franco-Ashkenazi version.42 The Rid also quotes from and comments on the writings of R. Gershom Meor Ha-Golah,43 Rabbenu Yitzchak,44 R. Yitzchak Alfasi,45 and R. Hananel. According to Ta-Shema, the near absence of gaonic material in the literature of the Tosafot resulted from their Talmudic methodology.46 He notes that the Rid “infrequently mentions gaonic material throughout all of his compositions.”47 However, from a survey of the Rid’s halakhic corpus it seems that he does frequently cite gaonic literature, in a manner that distinguishes him from other Tosafists. The Rid cites the opinions of R. Ahai Gaon,48 R. Sherira Gaon,49 and many others.50 Nevertheless, he reserves for himself the autonomy to rule against the geonim,51 as we shall see below. A more thorough study of the Rid’s use of gaonic literature is a desideratum. One of the most famous characteristics of the academies established by the Franco-Ashkenazi Tosafists was the academic freedom that reigned throughout the yeshiva—which they encouraged.52 Interaction between sages was determined by a given sage’s intellectual ability and not by his predetermined place within the academic hierarchy, as was the case in the gaonic yeshivot. Similar to

three but rather he meant even ten, and all the more so three.” We should of course emphasize that a critical approach toward Rashi was common among the Tosafists. See Urbach, Tosafot, 689. 42 Y. Malahi, “Rabbi Isaiah DeTrani as Preserving the Italian Tradition of Rashi’s Commentary to the Talmud,” Shaanan 16 (2011): 73–8. 43 See Tosafot Ha-Rid, Shabbat 41a. Concerning R. Gershom Meor Hagolah’s commentary on the Talmud, see A. Grossman, The Early Sages of Ashkenaz ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981), 165–74. Many citations from R. Gershom’s Talmudic commentary can be found in Italian sources. Zimmer has discussed R. Gershom’s “Italian” nature; see “About the Origin of Rabbeinu Gershom Meor Hagola,” Tarbiz 43 (1974): 227–9; Ta-Shema, Studies, 1, 12. 44 See Tosafot Ha-Rid, Shabbat 113a. 45 See ibid., 147a. 46 Ta-Shema, Studies, 4, 11. 47 Ibid., 3, 38. 48 See Tosafot Ha-Rid, Shabbat 45a. According to Ta-Shema, Talmudic Commentary in Europe and North Africa: Literary History ( Jerusalem, 2004), 187–8, the systematic study of the sheiltot was widespread in the Byzantine Empire and in southern Italy. See, for instance, his reference to R. Hai Gaon in Tosafot Ha-Rid, Kiddushin 23b and his reference to R. Hananel in Tosafot Ha-Rid, Kiddushin 50a. 49 See Tosafot Ha-Rid 37b. 50 See, for instance, his reference to the Rambam in Tosafot Ha-Rid, Rosh Hashanah 23b. 51 See Sefer Hamakhria, 57. 52 Urbach, Tosafot, 679.

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other Tosafists, the Rid felt relatively free to disagree with his predecessors.53 An outstanding example of this can be seen in Responsa 62 of the Rid: At the outset, I would like to respond to your claim that I should not disagree with our great rabbi, R. Yitzchak, of blessed memory. Heaven forbid that I should act in such a manner, for I would never even think of disagreeing with him … But if something doesn’t seem correct to me, even if Joshua son of Nun should say it to me, I wouldn’t obey him. And I don’t refrain from saying about him what I think within the scope of my limited intellectual ability. I would like to compare my own situation to a parable offered by the philosophers. I have heard from the sages among the philosophers that they asked of the greatest among them: Behold, we all admit that the previous generations were greater than us, but we also acknowledge that we contradict their words in many places and we feel that the truth is with us. How can both of these things be true? He responded to them: Who sees further, the dwarf or the giant? I would say the giant, whose eyes are higher than those of the dwarf. But if we were to put the dwarf on the shoulders of the giant, who would see further? I would say the dwarf, whose eyes are now higher than those of the giant. Thus, we are dwarves sitting on the shoulders of giants. For we have learned their wisdom, and we have built upon it. And through their wisdom we have grown wise enough to assert what we say, and not because we are greater than they.

This is the first appearance of the parable of the dwarf standing on the back of the giant in Jewish literature,54 and it is the best expression of the Rid’s halakhic personality. On the one hand, he relies on a vast quantity of earlier halakhic literature drawn from a wide range of geographic regions. On the other hand, he does not restrict himself to this extensive background, but rather makes use of it for his interpretations and halakhic rulings.55  53 Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 36. 54 Ta-Shema, Ritual, Custom and Reality in Franco-Germany 1000–1350 ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996), 71. Ta-Shema (75n40) claims that this understanding of the Rid is a result of development that occurred in his thought throughout the years. 55 The Rid was not hesitant to take sides in the central halakhic debates of his time. An excellent example of this is his decision in the dispute between R. Shimon ben Gamaliel and the other sages concerning a husband who renounces his rights to his wife’s inheritance: “With regard to the halakhah, I have seen disputes between the geonim. Rabbenu Yitzchak of Pas,

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In the previous section, we presented the image of the Torah studying center of southern Italy, which included traditions gathered from Eretz Israel and Babylon. The figure of the Rid, presented in this chapter, is to be seen as a prolific writer, especially in his interpretations of the Talmud. The way that the Rid makes use of a wide variety of sources in his interpretations, and his independence, raise the question of the Rid’s attitude to the traditions of the Land of Israel in general, and the Jerusalem Talmud (Yerushalmi) in particular. In other words, does the Rid represent the geonim of Babylon and the Spanish sages, the attitude of the sages of France and Germany, or was he an independent Italian model? Due to the wide scope of this material, I will discuss only a few examples here, and hope to deal with a larger portion of the material elsewhere. This study will provide a deeper understanding of the Rid’s methodology and of the history of commentary on the Yerushalmi. 

THE RID AND THE YERUSHALMI: INTRODUCTION Throughout Jewish history, the Jerusalem Talmud was not the focus of rabbinic study.56 The fact that Yerushalmi manuscripts were rare, and those to which rabbis did have access were often full of errors, caused them to limit their study of this Talmud.57 Most Yerushalmi commentators were, in the words of L. Ginzberg, “seekers of peace” who attempted to make peace between the two Talmuds in any way they found possible.58  Rav Tzemach Gaon and Rav Nahshon Gaon say that the halakhah is not in accord with R. Shimon ben Gamaliel, and therefore if she dies he does not inherit her, as the sages rule. And R. Hananel, R. Hai Gaon and Rav Netronai Gaon say that the halakhah is like R. Shimon ben Gamaliel. And it seems to me that the halakhah is not like R. Shimon ben Gamaliel” (Sefer HaMakhria, 47). It is common in halakhic literature for sages to be hesitant to “put their head in between two mountains”—that is, to issue a decision when earlier, respected sages disagree. In the case above, the Rid cites the names of the disputing geonim and has no hesitation in issuing his own ruling. 56 See J. Sussman, Introduction to Talmud Yerushalmi According To Ms. Or. 4720 (Scal. 3) of the Leiden University Library ( Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2001), 9n7. Sussman points out that the Yerushalmi was not one of the first Jewish books to be printed after the invention of the printing press. 57 We should note that the Gaon of Vilna himself frequently interpreted the Yerushalmi in light of the Bavli. See Yaron Silverstein, The Vilna Gaon—Thought and Exegesis on the Jerusalem Talmud using the “Havanat Halashon” Version ( Jerusalem: Efrata College, 2011), 131–63. 58 L. Ginzberg, A Commentary on the Palestinian Talmud, vol. 1 (New York: The Jewish Teeological Seminary of America, 1941), 47.

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L. Ginzberg notes that the use of the Yerushalmi in Italy can be detected in three compositions: Sefer Ha’-arukh, and the commentaries on the Bavli by R. Shlomo ben Ha-yatom and the Rid.59 In Ginzberg’s opinion, the Rid used the Yerushalmi in a manner similar to other Tosafists, like R. Simson of Sens and R. Eliezer from Metz (Mintz). In contrast, however, the Yerushalmi no longer influenced subsequent generations of Italian rabbis. In any case, according to Bonfil, the mid-ninth century change in attitude toward the centers of Torah learning in Babylonia (see above) did not erase the earlier Palestinian foundations of rabbinic learning in Italy. He writes, “the Bavli was indeed available to them, and its authority was accepted. Nevertheless, other books remained accessible and were used by them.”60 Hence the question: What was the status of the Yerushalmi in the eyes of the Rid in view of the Italian traditions, and can we hear a unique voice from the Rid on this issue? We can get a sense of the Rid’s approach to the Yerushalmi from comments found in Tosafot Ha-Rid on Hagigah 10a: R. Johanan said: Even from Talmud to Talmud. The master [‫]המורה‬ explained that this means from the Talmud Yerushalmi to the Talmud Bavli, which is deeper [than the Yerushalmi], as it is said in Sanhedrin “you have placed me in darkness”: this refers to the Bavli. But to me it seems that the opposite is true, that the Bavli is better explained and that this person set aside the Bavli in favor of the Yerushalmi in order to make things easier.

According to R. Johanan, the leading Palestinian amoraic sage, a person who goes from “Talmud to Talmud” will have no peace; that is to say, it is difficult to move from learning Torah in Eretz Israel and learning Torah in Babylon. This difficulty might be cognitive, due to the different methods of learning and thought processes that exist in each corpus, or it could be manifested in confusion with regard to behavior, due to the different practices in Babylon and Palestine. We should note that most commentators explained R. Johanan’s statements as referring to the cognitive difficulty in moving from the Talmud to Talmud as we know them.61 59 According to Ginzberg (ibid., 113–14), like other Franco-Ashkenazi sages, the Rid was influenced by R. Hananel in his use of the Yerushalmi, but “we don’t find in the Sefer Ha ‘arukh commentaries on the Yerushalmi.” 60 Bonfil, Myth, 106. 61 This is in line with the educational curriculum found in modern yeshivot. However, among modern Talmudic researchers the difference between the two Talmuds is not a result of the amoraic level but rather the later editorial development by the stam. See, for instance,

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Rashi (the “teacher,” as referred to by the Rid) took into consideration the historical development from the Yerushalmi to the Bavli, according to which a shift in the style of learning occurred. His comments even accord with the historical figure of R. Johanan, who emphasized the tradition from Eretz Israel. In contrast, the Rid sets aside the historical figure of R. Johanan and interprets the statement in accordance with assumptions that match those common in his own time. European rabbis in this period believed that the Bavli was a deeper, more demanding work. The Rid considered a sage who spent his time learning the Yerushalmi to be one seeking material that was simpler and easier.62 From here, we can clearly see that the literary corpus considered by the Rid to be central and most authoritative was the Bavli, which he occasionally calls “our Talmud” (Piske Ha-Rid on Bava Batra, 162 and elsewhere). This statement seemingly can be attributed to the cognitive aspect, but another passage demonstrates the Rid’s approach to the Yerushalmi, also by way of halakhic tradition: Yerushalmi Berakhot 9:3, 14a

Piske Ha-Rid on Menahot, 112, Laws of Tzitzit, 497

One who makes tzitzit for himself … for another … when he wraps himself …

One who makes tzitzit for himself says, “Blessed … who sanctified us in His commandments and commanded us to make tzitzit.” [If he makes them] for someone else he says, “to make tzitzit for His name.” When he wraps himself in them he says, “to wrap oneself in tzitzit.” The same for a lulav, a mezuzah and all of the mitzvot. These words disagree with our Talmud. And we should not rely on them. And we don’t bless except at the conclusion of the performance of the mitzvah.

This discussion centers on the question of when one is supposed to recite a blessing while preparing an object to be used in the performance of a ritual. There are two tendencies in halakhic rulings concerning this matter. The first is that one should bless when one begins to fashion the object, and the other is S. Friedman, Talmudic Studies, 21. This only sharpens the importance of recovering the original meaning of the term “the Torah of Eretz Yisrael.” See Silverstein, The Gaon of Vilna, 134–5.  62 See also Tosafot Hagigah 10a.

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that one recites the blessing only when the object is ready for use. The Yerushalmi leans in the first direction whereas the Bavli, in several places, leans to the second possibility. In his commentary, the Rid cites the sugya as it appears in the Yerushalmi, but notes that the Yerushalmi’s recording of the material stands in direct opposition to the Bavli (“our Talmud”), and, therefore, we should not rely on the Yerushalmi’s position. The Rid shares this approach to the Yerushalmi with the geonim, as can be seen from the following quote from R. Hai Gaon: Concerning a matter that is clear in our Talmud, we don’t rely on the Talmud of the people of the Land of Israel, for learning ceased there for many years due to persecution… . We rely on the conclusions reached here [in the Bavli]. But in a matter about which there is debate in our Talmud, we look at what was said there [in the Yerushalmi]. Alternatively, [we look there] to understand the reason for a matter [if it is not explained in the Bavli].63

According to this approach, the Yerushalmi stands secondary to the Bavli, and therefore it can be used as a means to explicate matters that are not clear in the latter, more authoritative Talmud. This was also the approach of the Spanish sages such as the Ri Migash (Responsa 81), the Rif (Eruvin 35b), and others.64 Urbach notes that the Tosafists also generally followed the approach to the Yerushalmi set by R. Hai Gaon, but that some halakhic authorities in Ashkenaz attempted not to rule against the Yerushalmi due to their belief that Palestine was the source of halakhah (see Yehuse Tannaim ve-Amoraim, vol. 3, 286).65 The Rid, in this commentary, does not consider this tradition to have any halakhic importance, and therefore does not attempt to provide any excuse for the differences between the Talmuds. In cases where there is no commentary available on a mishnah in the Bavli, the Rid cites the Yerushalmi as an authoritative source of interpretation. For example, Mishnah Moed Katan 3:3 states: “these can be written during the festival: betrothal documents, divorce documents, receipts, wills, gift documents, prozbuls, evaluation certificates and orders for support, documents of halitzah 63 S. Asaf, ed., Responsa of the Geonim ( Jerusalem, 1939), 125–6. 64 For a survey of the approach of the Rif and the Ri Migash to the Yerushalmi, see A. Hakohen, “The Jerusalem Talmud in the Teaching of the Early Spanish Sages,” Jewish Law Annual (1992–94): 113–76. 65 Urbach, Tosafot, 708–9.

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and of repudiation [of marriage] and arbitration records; decrees of the court and correspondence.” In the Bavli on Moed Katan and Bava Metzia there is no explanation of what I have translated as “orders for support” and “correspondence” (literally “voluntary letters”). Rashi (Moed Katan 18b; Bava Metzia 20a) comments: “orders for support—such as ‘so and so agreed to support his wife’s daughter,’” whereas the Nimukei Yosef (Bava Metzia 11b, s.v. matni) explains, “he accepted upon himself to support his children and wife.” According to the Meiri (Bava Metzia 20a), “this refers to support for his wife and daughters, that the judges wrote a document for them allowing them to sell his land in order to pay for support.” In the responsa of the Ra’abad (160) he explains that this refers to “food for her support.” The Or Zarua (vol. 3, Piskei Bava Metzia 53) explains: “orders of support in which he accepted upon himself to support his wife’s children.” In contrast to these opinions, the Rid makes consistent use of the Yerushalmi (Moed Katan 3:3) in his halakhic rulings, and explains that “orders of support” refers to support for his widow. Concerning “correspondence,” R. Asher (Moed Katan 3:22) writes: “‘correspondence’ refers to greetings of peace, and this is how it is explained in the Yerushalmi [halakhah 3]. They are called ‘voluntary’ because they are not really necessary (or mandated).” This passage from the Yerushalmi is also cited in Sefer Ha-Itur (maamar 7, Gittin and Documents, 30a), and in the Rif (Moed Katan 10b). In his halakhic rulings (Moed Katan 392), the Rid also makes use of this explanation in the Yerushalmi and explains that “‘voluntary letters’ are greetings of peace.” The following excerpt also demonstrates the Rid’s approach to the Yerushalmi as well as to the commentary of R. Hananel: R. Hananel, of blessed memory, wrote: “we have a tradition received from our rabbis that even if a husband threw the get into his wife’s courtyard she is not permitted to remarry until the get is in her hands.” For we read in the Yerushalmi, “the clearest case is [that it is not a get] until he gives it to her.” But this doesn’t seem correct to me. For that which Shmuel states: “You should not act thusly [to allow her to remarry] until the get is in her hands,” that is only when he threw it to her when she was on her master [her husband]’s property. For a woman does not have property rights on her master’s property. But when he throws it to her and she is on her own property there is no doubt that this is a divorce. Therefore, even if the get has not arrived in her hands she is divorced, for her courtyard acquires it on her behalf. (Piske Ha-Rid on Gittin, 213)

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This excerpt deals with the authority of an amoraic statement in Yerushalmi Gittin 8:2: “Shmuel disagrees with R. Lazar that the clearest case of [of it being a get] is that it is [not a get] until he puts it in her hand.” This statement makes it clear that when it comes to what is considered a woman’s reception of her get, she is not divorced until she actually receives the get in her hands. The term “the clearest case (‫ ”)המחוור מכולן‬could be construed as demonstrating that this is the final decision in the matter. We should note that there is a parallel to this in Bavli Gittin 68b: “Shmuel said to R. Jehudah: ‘toothy one—[she is not divorced] unless she can bend down and pick it up. But you shouldn’t execute [the divorce] until the get is in her hands.’” However, the language of this statement is not quite as decisive as that found in the Yerushalmi. This gave rise to the question of how to relate to the two statements in the two Talmuds, in light of the numerous discussions in the Bavli concerning someone who throws a get into his wife’s courtyard. In the passage above, the Rid cites R. Hananel (965–1055), an Italian sage whom we have mentioned previously.66 R. Hananel claims that, in this case, he has a received tradition that the halakhah is like the amoraic statement in the Yerushalmi. R. Hananel is not the only one who cites such a tradition. The Radbaz writes in his responsa (4:115): “It is written in the Arukh that our rabbis have a tradition that even if he threw the get into her courtyard she is not permitted to remarry until the get is in her hands. And this is what it says in the Yerushalmi …” From here, we can surmise that this was an early Italian/ Palestinian tradition. 66 Rashbam, Bava Batra 86b: “in the commentary of R. Hananel of Rome” who was from Italy and then emigrated to North Africa. Compare Sefer Yohsin, Maamar 5, Dorot Aharonim: “On Yoma 29b Rashi wrote: In the commentary of R. Hananel of Rome. And if so, this is not R. Hananel from Africa colleague of R. Nisim and the teacher of the Rif.” R. Hananel usually includes a selection of extra-gaonic traditions in his commentary as well as a consistent analysis of the Yerushalmi (Ta-Shema, Studies, 4, 22). R. Hananel has also fulfilled a dual role: he brought the gaonic tradition to Italy while also bringing Palestinian/Italian commentary to France and Germany (Ta-Shema, Studies, 3, 69). See also M. Ben Sasson, “The Jews in the Maghreb and Their Relations with Erez Israel in the Ninth through Eleventh Centuries,” Shalem 5 (1987): 48. According to Ben Sasson, “the penetration of the Yerushalmi into the academy in Kairouan seems to be the result of causes preceding the appearance of R. Hushiel but that had not reached fruition until his appearance. The openness to the inclusion of study of the Yerushalmi in the academy’s curriculum was connected to the quotations from the Yerushalmi found in the responsa of R. Sherira and R. Hai Gaon, and to the arrival in North Africa of students from Palestine and Italy which caused disputes in matters of interpretation, custom, and halakhah.”

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Whereas the Rambam begins his comments on R. Hananel by writing, “[the words of R. Hananel] are a received tradition and are worthy of consideration,” and so too the Rashba notes the importance of R. Hananel’s statement, the Rid simply dismisses them and writes “[that the ruling of R. Hananel] does not seem correct to me.” He interprets the amoraic statement in the Bavli to be dealing with a case where he threw her the get in the public domain, and therefore he rejects the Yerushalmi’s interpretation and the halakhic tradition of R. Hananel. He rules according to the Bavli, that a woman’s courtyard can be considered as transferring the get to her possession. From a story in the Bavli concerning Rava, a Babylonian amora later than Shmuel (Gittin 67b), and also from the passages in the Hilkhot Ha-Rif that deal with a courtyard owned by a woman, we can note that the Ramban also rejects the Yerushalmi. The main innovation in this passage is the fact that the Rid’s halakhic discussion focuses on the Bavli, as does that of the geonim. Thus, even in cases where R. Hananel presents the Yerushalmi as the foundation of a received halakhic tradition, the Rid nevertheless rejects the Yerushalmi as a source of authority. It seems that, according to the Rid, the real Kabbalah is the assumption of the supremacy of the Bavli. From this point of view, the Rid’s voice is not unique. His approach is similar to that of the geonim. The Rid’s approach to cases where the Yerushalmi clashes with gaonic authority can be discerned also in an additional passage. In the Tosafot Rid to Pesahim (116a) we find the following: “Yerushalmi: Can one fulfill one’s obligation [for wine on Pesah] with boiled wine? See what I wrote in the chapter ‘one who takes out wine’ in the second edition, that one must bless over boiled wine ‘who creates the fruit of the vine.’” The source of this ruling is Yerushalmi Shabbat 8:1 (and parallels): “Can one fulfill one’s obligation with boiled wine? R. Jonah said: one can fulfill one’s obligation with boiled wine. R. Jonah follows his own opinion, for R. Jonah drank four cups on Pesah and his head hurt him until Atzeret [Shavuot].” From this source, which includes both a statement and an anecdote, one can derive that boiled wine has the status of wine vis-àvis the commandment to drink four cups on Pesah and for the blessing “who creates the fruit of the vine.” This raises the question as to whether practical halakhah should accord with this passage in the Yerushalmi. The Rid writes in Sefer Ha-makhria 24 (p. 14): Can one fulfill one’s obligation with boiled wine? R. Jehuda said: One can fulfill one’s obligation with boiled wine. R. Jehuda follows his own

Palestinian and Babylonian Traditions in Italy opinion, for R. Jehuda drank four cups on Pesah and had to keep his head wrapped until Atzeret (Shavuot). From here, we have learned that boiled wine is still considered wine and that one blesses over it “who creates the fruit of the vine.” But in the Responsa of Rabbenu Paltoi Gaon I found written … [But I hold that] one should not uproot the words of the Yerushalmi unless it disagrees with our Bavli, and concerning this matter there is nowhere in the Bavli that says that one should not bless over boiled wine “who creates the fruit of the vine.”

First, we should note that the Rid quotes a reading of the Yerushalmi that is slightly different from that found in the printed edition (R. Jehuda and not R. Jonah). From the continuation of his words, we can see that the Rid is aware of a responsa of R. Paltoi Gaon that contradicts the conclusion in the Yerushalmi. This responsa rules that one should not recite “who creates the fruit of the vine” over boiled wine. Seemingly, had the Rid followed the path of determining halakhah as set by the Ra’abad (1120–98), the responsa of Rabbenu Paltoi Gaon should have settled the matter:67 The Ra’abad wrote that no one in our time is permitted to disagree with the words of a gaon in order to change the law unless there is some great difficulty, and this is not something common at all. Therefore, one who disagrees with a gaon is like someone who makes a mistake with regard to a ruling based on a mishnah. Similarly, if a person makes a mistake with regard to the rulings of the geonim due to lack of familiarity with their words—but had he been familiar with their words he would have retracted his ruling—this person is like a sage who makes a mistake with regard to a ruling based on a mishnah (cited in the Tur, Hoshen Mishpat 25).

The Rid, in contrast to the Ra’abad, emphasizes here the authority of the Yerushalmi against the geonim. The Rid claims that when there is a disagreement between the Yerushalmi and the Bavli the halakhah follows the latter. But, when the Yerushalmi’s ruling clashes with the words of a gaon, the Yerushalmi takes precedence. The Rid’s reasoning is chronological in this case—he emphasizes the superiority of the amoraim over the geonim instead of the geographical superiority of Babylonia over Palestine. 67 A more nuanced version of this approach can be found in the words of the Rosh on Sanhedrin 4:6.

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On this issue, indeed, the Rid’s unique voice can be heard. Despite many references to the geonim, he does not regard them as an unequivocal source of authority. In cases where there is no disagreement between the Bavli and the Yerushalmi, the Rid rules in accord with both Talmuds: The knife: one grinds it and it is pure. R. Huna said: And he inserts it ten times into the ground … It seems to me that there is a distinction between different types of knives, for thus we read in the Yerushalmi concerning this issue: R. Aba said in the name of R. Jehuda: that which you said refers to a small knife but a large knife must be forged. And forging is when it is heated up enough such that it sends out sparks. The interpretation of this is that R. Aba refers to the mishnah, that when it says “the knife, one grinds it and it is pure” it refers specifically to a small knife that is fit only for cutting and is not appropriate for roasting. That type of knife is purified by grinding. But a large knife that is sometimes used for roasting meat like a spit is not purified except through forging, as is the case with a spit and a grill. And this is how it is taught in Tosefta Avodah Zarah … [Tosafot Ha-Rid on Avodah Zarah 66b; Sefer Hamakhria 41]

According to Mishnah Avodah Zarah 5:12: “one who purchases vessels from an idolater … a knife, he grinds it and it is pure.” The Bavli on this mishnah (66b) lists several ways to make a knife fit for use with kosher food, but does not relate to the size of the knife. In the commentary cited above, the Rid quotes a passage from Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah (5:15) and uses it to distinguish between different sizes of knives. This use of the Yerushalmi to explain a passage in the Bavli is similar to the description that Maimonides offers: “that which is written in the Yerushalmi, as long as it is in the same location as in the Bavli, it seems to me that it is appropriate to rely on it, since it doesn’t disagree with the Bavli, it just explains it” (Responsa of the Rambam, 299).68 Y. Sussman notes that the notion of “two Talmuds completing one another” was unique to the Rambam, and stood in contrast to the accepted opinion among the geonim that the Bavli, which was chronologically later, annulled any authority that there was in the Yerushalmi.69 68 Blau edition (Reuven Mas, 1986), vol. 2, 558. 69 J. Sussman, “Pirqei Yerushalmi,” Mehqerei Talmud 2 ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1993): 281. For a survey of gaonic approaches to the Yerushalmi, see S. Abrahmson, R. Nisim Gaon, 550

Palestinian and Babylonian Traditions in Italy

On this subject of the two Talmuds, the Rid synthesizes his approach in a manner that accords with the Rambam’s methodology as outlined above.

EXPLANATIONS OF THE YERUSHALMI The flourishing of centers of rabbinic activity in Europe and North Africa in the eleventh century brought with it a renewed vigor in the composition of rabbinic works. In Germany, commentaries were composed on the Bavli, some important aggadic midrashim, liturgical poetry, and Sefer Yetzirah, but no commentaries were written on the Yerushalmi.70 This raises a question regarding the textual readings and commentary on the Yerushalmi preserved in the writings of the Rid. I will deal in greater depth with these two issues in a separate article. Here, I wish to limit the scope of my comments to a description of the characteristics of the Rid’s various interpretations of passages from the Yerushalmi. As stated above, the Rid, like the geonim, did not regard the Yerushalmi as a primary source of halakhah, one whose importance surpassed that of the Bavli. Nevertheless, there are places where the Rid cites the halakhic context of passages in the Yerushalmi in order to present a broader picture of his understanding of the correct halakhah. We can bring an example of such a phenomenon from Piske Ha-Rid on Betzah (95) and Tosafot Ha-Rid Betzah (36b): It is forbidden to marry a woman on Shabbat. This is because, before he marries her, the objects that she finds and her handiwork71 do not belong to him. But once he marries her the objects that she finds and her handiwork do belong to him and he has the right to annul her vows. If you were to allow him [to marry] on Shabbat it would turn out that he had made an acquisition on Shabbat. But it seems to me that our Talmud does not agree with the Yerushalmi, for if [the Bavli] considered the marriage prohibition to be a result of the prohibition of acquiring [on Shabbat], why would the Bavli say that marriage on Shabbat is prohibited lest he write… . (notes on 312–13). Concerning the Rambam’s use of the Yerushalmi, see A. Hakohen, ibid.; A. Hakohen, “From Talmud Yerushalmi To Hilkhot Yerushalmi: Rereading Maimonides’ Writings and their Versions,” Jewish Law Annual 22 (2005): 1–25. 70 See Immanuel, Fragments, 1–4. 71 In the Yerushalmi itself, the annulment of vows is mentioned with regard to both situations. This is also the reading found in Tosafot Ha-Rid. However, Piske Ha-Rid mentions the annulment of vows as being a right of the husband after marriage.

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This excerpt is based on Yerushalmi Ketubot 1:1, according to which the prohibition against marriage on Shabbat is due to the prohibition against acquiring.72 There is no halakhic discrepancy between the two Talmuds—both prohibit marriage on Shabbat. Nevertheless, the Rid notes that the Bavli (“our Talmud”) explains the rationale behind the prohibition differently.73 It seems that the Rid wished to emphasize the superiority of the Bavli, especially as far as reasoning went.  In other cases, the Rid mentions the Yerushalmi in order to place it in what he perceives to be its correct halakhic context. In the following extract, the Yerushalmi discusses the appropriate penalty for someone who verbally shames an elder: Yerushalmi Bava Kama 8:6

Piske Ha-Rid on Bava Kama, 160

Someone said in the name of Resh Lakish: one who shames an elder must give him the full amount of his shame.

Someone said in the name of Resh Lakish: one who shames an elder must give him the full amount of his shame.

A certain man got angry with R. Jehuda b. Hanina. The case came before Resh Lakish and he fined him a liter of gold.

A certain man got angry with R. Jehuda b. Hanina. The case came before Resh Lakish and he fined him a liter of gold. But this is nothing more than a general fine and one cannot learn anything from it. For there it also says: “One who disgraces his friend with words is exempt.”

72 The Yerushalmi expands the notion of the acquisition of the wife from the realm of prohibitions (she was prohibited to him and now she is permitted) to the financial arrangement between them (he now has rights to her property). 73 Another example of this phenomenon can be found in Piske Ha-Rid to Bava Kama (147), where he cites Yerushalmi Megillah 4:1: “He ordained that a woman should cleanse herself and comb her hair three days before her menstrual period. Those of the House of R. Yanai and R. Ba bar Kohen in the name of R. Huna [said] enough for Shabbat and the two days of the festival observed in the diaspora. See what I wrote in the chapter ‘a child’ (Niddah, chapter ten) that this is not the halakhah. Rather the cleansing of hair is performed only right before immersion.” In Piske Ha-Rid to Pesahim (366) the Rid cites Yerushalmi Pesahim 10:1 in order to demonstrate the source for a custom: “Rather [he fasted] because he was a firstborn. R. Mana, R. Yonah [said]: Father was a firstborn and he ate [on erev Pesah]. R. Tanhuma said: Not because of this, but because of this—Rabbi was delicate. He proves from this source that firstborns are accustomed to fasting on the day before Pesah. And this is the custom today in all western communities.”

Palestinian and Babylonian Traditions in Italy

This section of the Yerushalmi is composed of two parts: an anonymous tradition attributed to Resh Lakish, and a story that purports to demonstrate that Resh Lakish acted according to the tradition attributed to him. This passage in the Yerushalmi is also cited by the Rosh (chapter 8), the Or Zarua (Piske Bava Kama 361), and in the Responsa of the Rashba (1:169). The halakhic problem with this passage is that the person who caused the shame in the story did not actually perform any action, yet nevertheless is punished for his deed. The Rid rejects the Yerushalmi for two reasons. The first is that this is some sort of “fine” and we do not adjudicate such laws. The second reason is to be found in the continuation of the Yerushalmi itself: “R. Jose said: that is to say that someone who shames his fellow with words is exempt.”74 This is a type of internal commentary within the Yerushalmi. This is similar, in a way, to the manner in which the Tosafists related to the Bavli. A major aspect of any commentary on the Yerushalmi is an attempt to uncover the reality with which the Yerushalmi is dealing. An example of this can be found in Piske Ha-Rid on Taanit (198):75 Yerushalmi Berakhot 4:1 ( = Taanit 4:1)

Piske Ha-Rid Taanit (198)

Rosh Hodesh that falls on a public fast day:

Rosh Hodesh that falls on a fast day:

even though the neilah service is not recited on Rosh Hodesh he does mention Rosh Hodesh during neilah.

even though the neilah service is not recited on Rosh Hodesh he does mention Rosh Hodesh during neilah. This refers to a case where they began to fast and Rosh Hodesh happened to fall [on one of the fasts] as it is taught “if they begin they do not stop.”

This passage deals with the question of when to mention Rosh Hodesh during the amidah prayer when Rosh Hodesh occurs on the same day as a fast. According to Mishnah Taanit 4:1, on a fast day there are four recitations of the amidah prayer: shaharit, mussaf, minhah, and neilah. If the fast day 74 See the solution offered in Responsa of the Rashba (1:169): “As it says in the Yerushalmi in the third chapter of Moed Katan: There they taught: It was for show that they made her drink. What does it mean ‘for show’? Similarly: they excommunicated him, he died in excommunication, and the court stoned his coffin. This teaches that a person who disgraces an elder requires excommunication even after he dies. From here we can see that a person who disgraces sages with words—it is as if he disgraced their body.” 75 This passage is also found in Tosafot Ha-Rid on Taanit.

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occurs on Rosh Hodesh, one should mention Rosh Hodesh during the neilah prayer, even though this amidah normally is not recited on Rosh Hodesh. The Rid explains that this fast could fall on Rosh Hodesh if the order of public fasts were to be established earlier in the season. In such a case, the series of fasts should not be interrupted, even if one of those days should turn out to be Rosh Hodesh. In this way, the Rid contributes to the understanding of the contemporary reality with which the Yerushalmi was dealing.76  Another example can be found with regard to the identification of helek and tarit, both types of fish. In Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah 2:9, R. Johanan seemingly identifies the two fish as being the same: “R. Johanan said: helek is mashed tarit.” In contrast to the simple reading of this statement, the Rid offers a different interpretation: R. Johanan said: helek is mashed tarit. This is not to say that tarit and helek are exactly the same. Rather he means to say that they [are prohibited] for the same reason. Helek is forbidden because unclean fish mix in [with their brine] and tarit is forbidden for the same reason, lest pieces of unclean fish have been mixed in with it.

According to the Rid, helek and tarit are two different types of fish. When R. Johanan compared the two, he did not intend to identify them as the same. Rather, he said that both fish are prohibited for the same reason—they are usually mixed in with other fish that are unclean. Another example of the Rid’s explanation of a passage in the Yerushalmi can be found in his commentary concerning the donning of tefillin during the intermediate days of a festival (hol hamoed). 76 The mishnah from Taanit and the Yerushalmi from Taanit, as well as the Rid’s own commentary preserve the reading “fast” whereas in Yerushalmi Berakhot the Leiden manuscript reads “public fast” and the Rome manuscript reads “fast.” From the context in Taanit, it is clear that the reference is to a public fast, as the Rid interprets. It is possible that the version preserved in the Leiden manuscript of Berakhot (“public fast”) is an adjustment made to match the term generally used in the Yerushalmi (“public fast”). Another example of this can be found in Piske Ha-Rid on Berakhot (p. 30) where he cites Yerushalmi Berakhot 2:1: “R. Yehudah in the name of Shmuel: He must accept upon himself the yoke of heaven while standing. Does this mean that if he had been sitting he must stand up? No, [it means] that if he was walking he must stop. That is to say, if he was walking on the path and the time to recite the Shema came, he should not read while walking. Rather, he should stop and have proper intention and receive upon himself the yoke of heaven. After that, he may go back on his way.”

Palestinian and Babylonian Traditions in Italy

Yerushalmi Moed Katan 3:4

Piske Ha-Rid Moed Katan, 393

A tannaitic source disagrees with Rav. One may write tefillin and a mezuzah for oneself. Behold one cannot write for someone else. He resolves this by saying that he writes in order to put [the tefillin] on.

A tannaitic source disagrees with Rav. One may write tefillin and a mezuzah for oneself. Behold one cannot write for someone else. He resolves this by saying that he writes in order to put [the tefillin] on. For one puts on tefillin on hol hamoed. For it is only on the Sabbath and festivals that one does not put on tefillin. But on hol hamoed one does put on tefillin.

The passage above deals with when and under what circumstances a person can write tefillin and mezuzot on hol hamoed. According to Rav, the anonymous voice of the Yerushalmi resolves that one can write tefillin only when one is writing them in order to put them on. According to one interpretation of this (see for instance Responsa of the Rosh, 23:3), this person writes tefillin on hol hamoed but does not intend to use them until after the festival. The problem with this interpretation is that it is difficult to understand why he is allowed to perform an activity on hol hamoed when there is no need for the object he is making until after the festival. According to the interpretation of the Rid, Rav resolves this difficulty on his own ruling by limiting the permission to write tefillin on hol hamoed to someone who intends to put them on during hol hamoed itself. Thus, this activity is being done for the sake of the festival and it is permitted. The problem with this interpretation is that it does not explain why one would be allowed to write mezuzot during the festival. Furthermore, the verb used in the Yerushalmi is ‫להניח‬, which is not the normal term used with regard to wearing tefillin in Palestinian literature. Concerning this passage Ratzabi writes:77 The interpretation of the Rid does not, therefore, accord with the terminology used in the Yerushalmi. However, it does accord with the halakhah found in the Yerushalmi, according to which tefillin are worn during hol hamoed.78 This differs from the practice of Babylonian geonim [see the Responsa of the Rosh, ibid.]. The Rid emphasizes that this is indeed Palestinian practice and does not perceive of the practice as something 77 See Y. Ratzabi, “Spoken Languages according to the Sources,” Asufot Umevuot BeLashon 2 (1997): 332. 78 The source in the Bavli that states that one does not wear tefillin on festivals is found in Menahot 36b and Moed Katan 19a.

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At times the Rid comments on a passage in the Yerushalmi in order to explicate the background to a halakhic principle. Yerushalmi Kiddushin 2:1

Tosafot Ha-Rid Kiddushin (43b) and Piske Ha-Rid Kiddushin (343)

A certain man deposited a jar in the enclosure of his fellow.

A certain man deposited a jar with his fellow.

And [upon collection] the other denied [having received] it.

And [upon collection] the other denied [having received] it.

R. Pinhas said: the case came in front of R. Yirmiyah and he allowed the agent [who had delivered it] to be a witness and he obligated him to take an oath because of the porter who carried [the jar].

The case came in front of R. Yirmiyah and he allowed the agent [who had delivered it] to be a witness and he obligated him to take an oath because of the porter who carried [the jar]. But when it comes to a lender we cannot say the same thing for he can collect. And since the other one admits that he loaned to him he is not exempted by virtue of the words of the agent. And he does not cause him to swear; rather, he collects without an oath.

The Yerushalmi contains a story in which a man leaves jugs of wine with his friend. The friend later denies ever having received the jugs. In this case, R. Yirmiyah considered the porter who had been carrying the jugs to be a valid witness. Under such circumstances, a person can take an oath and receive his goods in return (Bavli Bava Metzia 3b). The version of the Yerushalmi quoted by the Rid is the same as that cited by the Rif (Kiddushin 17b), the Ramban (Bava Batra 34a),79 Sefer Haterumot (329, part 2:4), and others.80 There are two differences between the reading preserved by the rishonim and the reading as preserved in the manuscripts of the Yerushalmi. Whereas the manuscripts have the person depositing the object in his friend’s enclosure (thereby creating the possibility that his friend did not know about the deposit), the rishonim cite a version of the text in which the one depositing simply left 79 The version preserved by the Ramban attributes the ruling to R. Ami. 80 The version preserved by the Or Zarua (Responsa 750) requires analysis of the manuscript evidence.

Palestinian and Babylonian Traditions in Italy

the jars “with his friend.” In this version, the receiver should have known about the deposit. The second difference is that, in the Yerushalmi, R. Pinhas relates the story, whereas the rishonim’s version has no one transmitting the story. It seems that, in this case, the Rid’s version of the story is derived from that preserved by other rishonim, a phenomenon we have already noted elsewhere. Halakhic authorities asked why the Rif would quote this passage from the Yerushalmi on Kiddushin (17b), when it stands in contradiction to the Bavli, according to which the testimony of the porter is not acceptable. According to the Ramban (Bava Batra 34a), the case is one in which the depositor himself left the object with his friend and therefore the porter who accompanied him can take an oath, since he has no self interest in the matter. This is similar to the interpretation found in Sefer Haterumot (329, part 2:4): “we can explain this passage such that it does not disagree with the Bavli. It is for this reason that the rishonim resolved that in the case in the Yerushalmi the depositor went with the porter.” In contrast, the Ran (Kiddushin 17b) writes that the Rif meant to teach that even a person who acts as an agent can serve as a witness. This caused the Ran to be perplexed as to why the Rif did not take into consideration the enactment that a witness can always cause the person who is being sued to take an oath and to be exempt. Similarly, the Or Zarua (1:750) derived from this case in the Yerushalmi that an agent can serve as a witness in monetary matters and testify to the act that he performed. The Rid, as we saw above, also quotes this passage from the Yerushalmi, but does not follow the interpretive path set by the other rishonim. He assumes that the words of the Yerushalmi are accepted halakhah, but then limits this to a case of movable property. In the case of a monetary transaction, a porter (or one who carries the money) cannot be considered an agent, and therefore in this case the lender need not swear an oath. Rather, he simply recovers his loan without an oath. This highlights the fact that the main problem with the Rid’s interpretation lies in the contradiction between the two Talmuds, and not with the question of why Rif quoted this case in the Yerushalmi. Another aspect of the Rid’s commentary on the Yerushalmi is his explanation of the principle underlying a sugya. An example of this can be found in his explanation of a passage from Yerushalmi Kiddushin 4:10, which discusses a man and woman who come from abroad and declare that they are married: It was taught: A man and a woman who come from abroad. He says: “she is my wife.” And she says: “he is my husband.” [If another man has

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The Yerushalmi distinguishes here between two cases. In the first case, the man and the woman were the ones who defined themselves as married and, on the basis of this declaration, they are considered to be married. However, in this situation, there would be no punishment should the woman commit adultery. In the second case, the man and the woman were presumed to be married after a period of time (a minimal amount of thirty days), and therefore they are punished based on this presumption. The difficulty with this passage is how a legally effective presumption can be created when the whole basis of the evidence for their marriage was never certain in the first place? The Rid quotes this passage81 in his Tosafot on Kiddushin (63b) and in Piske Ha-Rid (Kiddushin, p. 385), and he writes: “therefore, punishments are not meted out based on their own testimony. But if they are presumed to be married, even though this very presumption rests on their words, then punishments for adultery are meted out.” The Rid explains that the presumption is created by the behavior of the couple. If the two act as married couples do for a month, then they can be presumed to be husband and wife. Therefore, if she has relations with another man, it is considered adultery, and both she and her paramour would be punished accordingly. Another example can be found in Piske Ha-Rid on Bava Kama (264) concerning the issue of stealing land from another person: R. Yohanan said: But have they not said that land cannot be stolen. Then why did they say that he must give him a field? They fined him. The explanation of this is that it was he who caused the field to be taken.

Mishnah Bava Kama 10:5 discusses a case where a man stole a field from his fellow, and then another person stole it from the robber. In this case, the person who stole the field originally must give another field to the original owners. The Rid cites R. Johanan’s statement in Yerushalmi Bava Kama 10:6, which raises a difficulty in the mishnah: land cannot be stolen. The Yerushalmi resolves the problem by answering that the restoration of the field is a fine levied on the 81 In the Rid’s reading of the Yerushalmi, R. Johanan alone is the author of the last statement.

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original robber. The Rid explains that the reason for fining him was that it was his (the original robber’s) actions that led to the second robbery taking place.82

CONCLUSION During the Rid’s lifetime, southern Italy was an important meeting place for Palestinian traditions and those traditions originating in Babylonia, which had already achieved general acceptance as the source of legal authority among most Jewish communities. The question of how to maneuver between the traditions from these two centers finds expression in the Rid’s approach to the Yerushalmi. In principle, the Rid accepts the exclusive supremacy of the Bavli in matters of halakhah, as did the geonim. He uses the Yerushalmi as a commentary on the Bavli in places where the latter is found lacking and as a supplement to the Bavli, as did the Rambam. Nevertheless, the Rid’s independent voice can be heard in his attitude to the traditions of the geonim. There are occasions when the Rid bestows greater authority on a tradition found in the Yerushalmi than traditions stemming from gaonic responsa. In his opinion, the status of the Yerushalmi was superior to that of the geonim. In contrast with the Arukh and other rishonim, the Rid occasionally interweaves his own commentary into the passages that he quotes from the Yerushalmi. These interpretations are significant, for they help us create a continuum of interpretation to the Yerushalmi, which, for hundreds of years, received scant rabbinic interpretation or attention. These interpretations should be reconstructed into a running commentary, albeit partial, on the Yerushalmi. However, this can be accomplished only after the roots and foundations of the Rid’s commentary have been thoroughly examined. One must consistently ask if the Rid’s intention in interpreting a given passage was to provide a basis for a known halakhic position or if he intended a more neutral explanation of the Yerushalmi. From the Rid’s remarks, we can see that southern Italy—at least for him— had almost completely moved under the influence of Babylon. It seems that this conclusion would indicate the need to reconsider characteristics of the Italian tradition, and its characterization as an independent scholarly tradition. 82 The Rid also dealt with the interpretation of difficult words in the Yerushalmi. In Piske Ha-Rid on Shabbat (328), the Rid cites Yerushalmi Shabbat 6:8: “And in the Yerushalmi they resolve: what is ANKATMIN? R. Abahu says: onos katmin. The meaning of onos is donkey. Katmin is someone whose hands have been chopped off. It is for this reason that they are pure, for they cannot be used for any work and he also cannot lean on them. He cannot go out with them on Shabbat for they are considered a burden.”

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CHAPTER 4

Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram: An Adaptation of Modistic Concepts by a Hebrew Grammarian of the Renaissance∗ DROR BEN-ARIÉ

1. INTRODUCTION

M

iqneh Abram is a bilingual Hebrew grammar composed by Abraham de Balmes in northern Italy in 1523. The treatise has many unique features that make it difficult to understand, and scholars have been puzzled as to its correct interpretation. I propose a new method here to interpret the unclear portions of this treatise, in order both to identify the author’s sources, and to appreciate the originality of his linguistic theory. It is argued that in order to fully understand de Balmes’s linguistic theory one must be acquainted not only with the Hebrew grammars written up to his time, but also with the Modistic school, a branch of Speculative grammar of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and in particular with Thomas of Erfurt’s Grammatica speculativa. After introducing de Balmes and his treatise, I demonstrate this claim through the analysis of one fundamental concept of his theory, the concept of harkavah (compositio). ∗ This paper is based on partial results of research carried out for the writing of a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Ora Schwarzwald of the department of Hebrew & Semitic Languages, Bar-Ilan University, and Prof. Cyril Aslanov of the department of Romance & Latin American Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which was approved on January 24, 2011. I am deeply grateful for their guidance and support.

Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram

2.  ABRAHAM DE BALMES AND HIS HEBREW GRAMMAR, MIQNEH ABRAM Abraham de Balmes was born in Lecce (southern Italy) to a Jewish family of Catalonian origin, probably in the 1460s.1 He became a doctor of medicine and philosophy in Naples in 1492, by special permission of the pope. After the expulsion of the Jews of Naples (held by Spain) in 1510 he moved to northern Italy, where he served as the personal physician of the cardinal Domenico Grimani, and lectured at the University of Padua, an institution that preserved a strong scholastic and Aristotelian tradition. As an Orthodox Jew maintaining close relations with Christian humanists, de Balmes served as a link between the general and the Jewish cultures. He is known especially for his achievements in two domains: as a translator of philosophical works from Hebrew into Latin, and as the author of Miqneh Abram (Peculium Abrae), a bilingual grammar of the Hebrew language. Miqneh Abram, whose title can be translated as either “Abram’s cattle” or “Abram’s purchase,” was composed in Hebrew and translated into Latin by the author himself up to the beginning of the seventh of its eight chapters. The translation was completed after the author’s death by Kalonymus ben David. The work was published in Venice in 1523, a short time after de Balmes’s death, by the well-known Christian humanist Daniel Bomberg, who had urged the author to compose this work and had supported him. Two editions of the work were published, a Hebrew one and a bilingual one (Hebrew, with literal translation into Latin). Miqneh Abram is an original work. It differs significantly from previous grammatical works such as David Qimḥi’s Mikhlol (and, in fact, even from later works) in scope, in structure, and in content. It is unique in having a distinct chapter devoted to syntax, the chapter of composition and regimen.2 Some of the topics discussed in this chapter are known from previous works, but de Balmes is the first to group them together in one chapter. Other topics are however completely new to Hebrew grammar. 1 It has been claimed that de Balmes was born in 1440 (e.g., Joseph Elijah Heller, “Balmes, Abraham ben Meir de,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 3, 2nd ed. [2007]: 94–5), but there is strong evidence against this claim; see Dror Ben-Arié, The Linguistic Theory of Abraham de Balmes according to His Grammatical Treatise “Miqneh Abram” (Peculium Abrae) [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2010), 20. 2 Sha‘ar ha-harkavah ve-ha-shimush (‫שער ההרכבה והשמוש‬, capitulum compositionis et regiminis). In this paper, I discuss the concept of harkavah. The concepts of harkavah and shimush are discussed thoroughly in the first and second chapters of Ben-Arié, The Linguistic Theory.

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Throughout Miqneh Abram, one finds terms, definitions, and discussions that are not only vague and unclear, but which also have no precedents in previous Hebrew grammars. They reflect linguistic concepts that are unique to Miqneh Abram, and their meaning is hard to understand from within the work. Although the book seems to have been composed in a structured and systematic way, based on definitions and divisions as is common in the philosophical writing of the Middle Ages, one often finds that definitions are missing, or that they provide very little help as to the meaning of the concepts. This lack of textual clarity can be found in all parts of the work, but is especially conspicuous in the seventh chapter, the chapter devoted to syntax. An educated contemporary reader may encounter difficulties when attempting to read this book. The concepts and definitions are based on the author’s cultural context, and are filled with a philosophical spirit foreign to the modern-day reader. The challenge the reader faces is to overcome the obstacle of the form in which the ideas are conveyed, and to determine the exact meaning of the ideas behind the words. I argue that de Balmes’s sixteenth-century treatise is influenced strongly by the Modistic school, a branch of Speculative grammar centered in Paris, which was active in the second half of the thirteenth and the early fourteenth century (see Section ‎5). The Modists were engaged in developing a grammar that was theoretical and universal rather than a practical grammar suited to a specific language. De Balmes was influenced especially by Thomas of Erfurt’s Grammatica speculativa, a treatise composed at the beginning of the fourteenth century, which developed and completed the Modistic theory. In my dissertation,3 I show that in order to understand de Balmes’s theory fully, one must be acquainted with the Modistic theory and with Thomas’s work. The analysis reveals the influence of the Modistic school on de Balmes and sheds light on his methods of applying their concepts to the Hebrew language. It should be stressed that de Balmes does not merely copy Modistic concepts. He rather processes and refines them to construct a grammatical theory of the Hebrew language that is influenced structurally by the Modistic theory, yet differs from it in significant aspects. Several scholars have appreciated the uniqueness and the originality of Miqneh Abram. Among those who have looked into the chapter on syntax,

3 Ben-Arié, The Linguistic Theory.

Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram

we should mention Gyula Wellesz,4 Shlomo Morag,5 Anthony J. Klijnsmit,6 Cyril Aslanoff,7 Saverio Campanini,8 and David Téné.9 In Ben-Arié, The Linguistic Theory, I focus for the first time on the theory of syntax that de Balmes develops in this book, and I discuss the influence of both Hebrew grammar and Western grammar on the author.

3.  THE CONCEPT OF HARKAVAH (COMPOSITIO) IN MIQNEH ABRAM I will demonstrate the Modistic influence on de Balmes through the analysis of the term harkavah (‫“ הרכבה‬composition,” compositio) in Miqneh Abram. This term is fundamental in de Balmes’s grammar, especially in his theory of syntax. The proposed analysis of this term illustrates de Balmes’s way of adopting Modistic concepts while altering the details. This term is widely used in most of the chapters of his work for the discussion of almost every linguistic domain: the letters, the vowels, the signs of the vowels, and the morphology of the nouns, verbs, and particles. In these contexts, we can trace this concept to the works of grammarians like Yona Ibn Ǧanaḥ, David Qimḥi, and others. I list below a few of the linguistic concepts that are referred to as harkavah or murkav—“composite, composed of ”—in various chapters of Miqneh Abram.

4 Gyula Wellesz, Abraham de Balmes mint nyelvész: adalék a héber nyelvtudomány történetéhez (Budapest: Neumayer Ede Könyvnyomdája, 1895). 5 Shlomo Morag, “‫ הכנס‬,‫“כנס ונציה‬, ”’‫ אברהם דבלמש וספרו ‘מקנה אברם‬:‫”העברית והרינסאנס בוונציה‬ ‫ אוניברסיטת ונציה‬,‫העברי המדעי השביעי באירופה‬, ed. Efrat Naor ( Jerusalem: Brit Ivrit Olamit, 1990), 14–22. 6 Anthony J. Klijnsmit, Balmesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Pre-Rationalist Thought (Amsterdam: Stichting Neerlandistiek VU, 1992); and Anthony J. Klijnsmit, “‘Stand-still’ or Innovation?,” Helmantica 148–9 (1998): 39–71. 7 Cyril Aslanoff, “La réflexion linguistique hébraïque dans l’horizon intellectuel de l’Occident médiéval: essai de comparaison des traités de grammaire hébraïque et provençale dans la perspective de l’histoire des doctrines grammaticales,” Revue des Études Juives 155 (1996): 5–32. 8 Saverio Campanini, “‘Peculium Abrae,’ la grammatica ebraico-latina di Avraham de Balmes,” Annali di Ca’ Foscari 36, no. 3 (1997): 5–49. 9 David Téné, “Abraham de Balmes and His Grammar of Biblical Hebrew,” History of Linguistics 1996: Selected Papers from the Seventh International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHOLS VII) Oxford, September 12–17, 1996 (ed. David Cram, Andrew Linn, and Elke Nowak), vol. 1 (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1999), 249–57.

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• Caesuras syllabarum “cuttings of syllables” are composed of litterae “letters” and puncta “points”; dictiones “words” are composed of caesuras syllabarum; and orationes “sentences” are composed of dictiones.10 • A distinction is made between simple vowels and composite vowels11 or between simple binyanim (conjugation paradigms of verbs) and composite binyanim.12 • A composite verb form is composed of two verb forms or of two roots.13 • The inverted future is composed of the past and the future not because of its form but rather because of its semantics: it signifies “what is due to become past.”14 Of particular interest here is the new meaning that de Balmes attaches to the term harkavah, a meaning that is unique to the chapter about syntax in Miqneh Abram and which cannot be found in other chapters of this work or in previous treatises of Hebrew grammar. De Balmes devotes the first part of the seventh chapter to a discussion of harkavah and its types, and yet the definition used by de Balmes is so obscure that it cannot be used to determine the meaning of this term. Before discussing the definition of harkavah in the next section, I present a few examples of harkavah that are all taken from the seventh chapter of Miqneh Abram. The prototypical discussion of a concept in Miqneh Abram consists of three parts: a definition, a few examples, and a division of the concept into sub-concepts. De Balmes gives very few examples of harkavah per se, but he does give examples of specific “parts” (i.e., types), of harkavah.15 The examples in Table 1 are grouped according to the type. Each Hebrew term or example is followed by its transliteration, its Latin counterpart in Miqneh Abram, and a literal translation into English.

10 Miqneh Abram, Chapter 1, pp. ii b–iii b. All references to Miqneh Abram are to the bilingual edition, Abraham de Balmes, Peculium Abrae (Venice: In aedibus Danielis Bombergi, 1523). I use the same convention as in Campanini, Peculium Abrae. Each reference consists of the number of the page in the octavo (i–viii) and the number of the octavo (a–z, three special symbols, A–O). For example, Miqneh Abram, vi d refers to the sixth page of the fourth octavo. 11 Miqneh Abram, Chapter 3, pp. viii d, i e. 12 Ibid., Chapter 5, p. vi s. 13 Ibid., Chapter 5, p. vii Ɽ. 14 Ibid., Chapter 5, p. vii t. 15 The division of harkavah is discussed in Section 9.

Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram Table 1  Examples of Harkavah in Miqneh Abram Type of Harkavah

Given Examples

(‫ העומדת‬or) ‫הרכבת הפעלים הבודדת‬ harkavat ha-pe‘alim ha-bodedet (ha-‘omedet) ve-Loṭ halach compositio verborum intransitiva et Loth ivit “isolated or stationary composition of the verbs” “and Lot went”

“‫„ולוט הלך‬

(‫ העומדת‬or) ‫הרכבת הענינים הבודדת‬ “‫ „ותב ֹא בלט‬,”‫„ראובן לבן‬ harkavat ha-‘inyanim ha-bodedet (ha-‘omedet) Reuven lavan, va-tavo balaṭ compositio rerum intransitiva Ruben albus, et venit clam “isolated or stationary composition of the matters” “white Reuben,” “and [she] came softly” ‫הרכבת הפעלים הנודדת‬ harkavat ha-pe‘alim ha-nodedet ichlu mashmanim compositio verborum transitiva comedite pinguia “transitionary composition of the verbs” “eat fat” ‫הרכבת הענינים הנודדת‬ harkavat ha-‘inyanim ha-nodedet ben Avraham compositio rerum transitiva filius Abraham “transitionary composition of the matters” “son [of] Abraham”

“‫„אִכלו משמנים‬

“‫„בן אברהם‬

From the examples, it can be observed that the term harkavah signifies a linguistic unit larger than the single word (dictio) and smaller than the full sentence (oratio), typically consisting of two constituents.

4.  THE DEFINITION OF HARKAVAH IN MIQNEH ABRAM The following is the Hebrew definition of harkavah at the beginning of the seventh chapter of Miqneh Abram. It is followed by the author’s own literal Latin translation, and finally by a literal translation of the Hebrew text into English. ‫היא התאחד המרכיבים כפי דרכי הוראתם אשר יגרום א ֹתו השכל אשר יגזור א ֹתו‬ .‫ההרכבה השמושית להוציא ציור נפשו המורכב‬ Compositio regiminis sit unio componentium secundum modos suae significationis quam causabit intellectus: qui decernit eam ad exprimendum conceptum suae animae compositum.16 The compositio regiminis “composition of rection” is the union of the components according to the modes of their signification caused by the intellect that derives it to express the composite concept of its soul.

16 Miqneh Abram, p. vi B.

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The definition of harkavah is not clear, covering up more than it reveals. It seems like a philosophical definition rather than a functional grammatical definition. It makes reference to terms such as modi significationis “modes of signification,” that are not part of the Hebrew grammatical tradition, and are rare even in other parts of Miqneh Abram. At the end of Section 2, some works were listed that deal with the syntax chapter of Miqneh Abram. None of these works analyze systematically the definition of harkavah, nor do they identify the sources that influenced de Balmes. My speculation was that the cryptic character of the definition evolved from its being based on another work. The author might have assumed that the terms were familiar to the readers so that there was no need for him to introduce them. To affirm this hypothesis, I examined grammatical works up to de Balmes’s time, focusing on works of a theoretical and universal nature, similar to the theoretical nature of de Balmes’s own work. I found that the definition in Miqneh Abram closely resembles the definition in Thomas of Erfurt’s work of the early fourteenth century, which is the most thorough work presenting the principles of the Modistic school. In the following sections, the Modistic concept of constructio will be introduced, and the definition of constructio in Thomas of Erfurt’s Modistic grammar will be discussed. The similarity between de Balmes’s definition of harkavah and Thomas’s definition of constructio will be observed, and the latter definition will be used to explain de Balmes’s definition. But first, some introductory remarks about the Modists are in order.

5.  THE MODISTS Grammatica speculativa (Speculative grammar) is the name of the discipline that deals with the essential and universal aspects of language, those holding for any human language, ignoring the accidental and unique aspects of a given language. It is opposed to grammatica practica. Interest in grammatica speculativa arose in the twelfth century, following the rediscovery of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in Western Europe. The logicians who dealt with it believed that the intrinsic meaning of words, linking them to the extra-linguistic reality, was common to all people. The properties of the parts of speech were also considered universal.

Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram

Modistic grammar is a branch of Speculative grammar. The Modists were active in the second half of the thirteenth and the early fourteenth century, and their center was in Paris. The most important concept of their theory is modi significandi “modes of signification.” The Modists linked the properties of words in the language, modi significandi, to the properties of phenomena in reality, modi essendi, through the properties of concepts in the mind, modi intelligendi. According to them, things in reality have properties such as being, becoming, singularity, plurality, and many others. When one thinks about a thing, a concept of the thing is created in the mind, and the properties of the thing become the properties of the concept. When one wishes to convey the concept to another person, the spoken word acts as the sign of the concept, and its linguistic properties, the modi significandi, are the properties of the concept. For instance, the words “a shout,” “shouted,” and “ow” signify exactly the same thing in the real world (according to the Modists), but they express a choice of different properties that are attached to the thing, such as the property of stability, the property of change, and the property of expressing an emotion. These are the properties of the concepts signifying these things and of the words signifying these concepts (i.e., of the appropriate parts of speech: the noun, the verb, and the interjection). The most extensive treatise presenting the Modistic school in its prime is Thomas of Erfurt’s De modis significandi sive grammatica speculativa “on the modes of signification or Speculative grammar.” Thomas composed his treatise during the first decade of the fourteenth century. Very little is known about his life. He studied in Paris in around 1300, and lectured in Paris and in Erfurt. Like a typical Modistic treatise, Thomas’s treatise is divided into three parts: prooemium, where the author introduces the terms used in the remainder of the work; etymologia, where he discusses the parts of speech one by one; and diasynthetica, where he discusses syntax. The three parts are interwoven. In the preamble, he defines the partes orationis “parts of speech” and the modi significandi; in the section devoted to etymology, he uses the modes of signification to define and characterize the parts of speech; and in the part discussing syntax he uses the modes of signification to express the syntactical function of the parts of speech. In most manuscripts of the treatise, the section on syntax is missing. This proves the lack of interest in this part of Thomas’s theory in the centuries following his time—as opposed to the great interest in syntax in the Modists’ time.

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More on Speculative grammar, the Modists, and Thomas of Erfurt in particular can be found in Charles Thurot,17 Jan Pinborg,18 Geoffrey Leslie BursillHall,19 Irène Rosier,20 Michael A. Covington,21 and Vivien Law.22

6.  THE MODISTIC CONCEPT OF CONSTRUCTIO In this section, two terms of Western grammar, compositio and constructio, are introduced. These terms are important for the discussion of harkavah in the subsequent sections. The Latin term compositio is the translation of the Greek term that Aristotle used in his De interpretatione,23 and it is widely used in medieval physics and logics. In medieval grammars written in Latin, however, the term constructio is preferred, first by Priscian, who coined this term as a translation of the Greek σύνταξις (syntaxis) of Apollonius Dyscolus’s grammar of the second century. Priscian discusses constructio at length in the last two books of his Institutiones grammaticales (composed in Constantinople, 515–20), devoted to syntax.24 The Modists attached a theoretical meaning to the concept of constructio. According to them, constructio signifies the establishment of linkages between words according to a formal set of rules.25 Constructio is the basic structure, the 17 Charles Thurot, Extraits de divers manuscrits latins pour servir à l’histoire des doctrines grammaticales au Moyen Âge‎(Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1869; Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1964), 121–391. 18 Jan Pinborg, Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im Mittelalter (Münster, NRW: Aschendorff, 1967), 17–131; and Jan Pinborg, “Speculative Grammar,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 254–69. 19 Geoffrey Leslie Bursill-Hall, Speculative Grammars of the Middle Ages: The Doctrine of Partes orationis of the Modistae (The Hague–Paris: Mouton, 1971); and Geoffrey Leslie BursillHall, Grammatica speculativa of Thomas of Erfurt (hereafter Gram. Spec.) (London: Longman, 1972). 20 Irène Rosier, La grammaire spéculative des modistes (Lille: Presses universitaires de Lille, 1983). 21 Michael A. Covington, Syntactic Theory in the High Middle Ages: Modistic Models of Sentence Structure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). 22 Vivien Law, The History of Linguistics in Europe from Plato to 1600 (Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 172–9. 23 Covington, Syntactic Theory, 79. 24 Marc Baratin, La naissance de la syntaxe à Rome (Paris: Minuit, 1989), 367–76. 25 Covington, Syntactic Theory, 35–44.

Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram

object of research of the grammarian, in the same way that propositio is the object of research of the logician.26 Oratio—“sentence”—is viewed as a collection of constructions, each consisting of exactly two components.27 The Modists also used the term compositio, but they gave it a very specific meaning (the relationship between the verb and the subject), which is irrelevant to the current discussion. The Modists distinguished between terms used for physics and terms used for language. This can be exemplified by the following sentence, which is an extract of the discussion of the division of constructio in Thomas of Erfurt’s treatise.28 The Latin text is followed by Bursill-Hall’s translation into English. Nam sicut ex […] fit per se compositum in natura; sic ex […] fit per se constructio in sermone. Just as from […] create by themselves a composite in nature, so by reason of […] a construction is created by itself in the sentence.29

Thomas identifies a correspondence between the construction in physics and the construction in language,30 yet he uses a different term in each domain. He uses the term compositun, a term used by the philosophers and the logicians, for the relationships between objects in reality. He uses the term constructio for the relationships between constituents in language. Here are a few examples to illustrate what the Modists meant by constructio. The examples in Table 2 are taken from Chapters XLVI–LII of Thomas of Erfurt’s Grammatica speculativa, and they are grouped according to the type of constructio.

26 Rosier, La grammaire, 43. 27 Ibid., 138. 28 Here we need only the outline of the sentence, without all the details. 29 Gram. Spec., 280–1. 30 See Rosier, La grammaire, 145.

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Part Two    The Middle Ages and the Renaissance Table 2  Examples of Constructio in Grammatica speculativa Type of Constructio

Given Examples of Constructions of This Type

constructio intransitiva actuum “intransitive construction of acts”

Socrates currit, Socrati accidit “Socrates runs,” “happens to Socrates”

constructio intransitiva personarum “intransitive construction of persons”

Socrates albus, currit bene “white Socrates,” “runs well”

constructio transitiva actuum “transitive construction of acts”

percutio Socratem “[I] hit Socrates”

constructio transitiva personarum “transitive construction of persons”

filius Socratis “son [of] Socrates”

7.  THOMAS OF ERFURT’S DEFINITION OF CONSTRUCTIO Constructio is defined in the second chapter of the last part of Thomas of Erfurt’s work, diasynthetica. The definition is based on the concept of modi significandi (see Section 5), discussed at length in the previous parts of the work, namely prooemium (where Thomas introduces the grammatical terms) and etymologia (where he systematically discusses the various parts of speech). Following is Thomas’s definition followed by Bursill-Hall’s translation into English. Constructio est constructibilium unio, ex modis significandi et intellectus causata, ad exprimendum mentis conceptum compositum finaliter adinventa. The construction is a combination of constructibles, made up of the modes of signifying, created by the intellect and devised for the purpose of expressing a compound concept of the mind.31

Before presenting the definition of constructio, Thomas discusses at length the “four essential principles of constructing the sentence congruously and completely.”32 The distinction of four essential principles, usually referred to as the four causes, was introduced by Aristotle in his Physics, and became a common methodology in the philosophical writing of the Middle Ages. Thomas’s definition is strict and concise and it is based explicitly on these four causes. I will return to this point in the next section. 31 Gram. Spec., 278–9. 32 Ibid., 274–6; see Rosier, La grammaire, 159–65.

Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram

8.  THE DEFINITION OF HARKAVAH IN VIEW OF THOMAS’S DEFINITION OF CONSTRUCTIO I claim that Thomas of Erfurt’s definition of constructio just quoted is reflected in de Balmes’s definition of harkavah reviewed in Section 4. Table 3 presents Thomas’s definition of constructio separated by the four causes. Each constituent in Thomas’s definition is accompanied by the corresponding constituent in de Balmes’s definition of harkavah. Table 3  The Definition of Harkavah vs. the Definition of Constructio Grammatica speculativa

Essential Cause

principium materiale “material cause”

Miqneh Abram

constructio “construction”

‫ההרכבה השמושית‬ compositio regiminis “composition of rection”

constructibilium “of constructibles”

‫המרכיבים‬ componentium “of the components” ‫התאחד‬

principium formale “formal cause”

principium efficiens “efficient cause”

unio “union, combination” intrinsecum “intrinsic”

‫דרכי הוראתם‬ modis significandi modos suae significationis “of the modes of signifying” “the modes of their signification” ‫השכל‬

extrinsecum “extrinsic” principium finale “final cause”

intellectus “the intellect” ad exprimendum mentis conceptum compositum finaliter adinventa “devised for the purpose of expressing a compound concept of the mind”

‫להוציא ציור נפשו המורכב‬ ad exprimendum conceptum suae animae compositum “to express the composite concept of its soul”

The two definitions clearly separate into corresponding constituents. In fact, de Balmes even uses similar words, or in some cases the exact same words, in his Latin definition of harkavah as in Thomas’s definition of constructio. De Balmes

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does not separate his definition of harkavah into its constituents. The internal structure of his definition is exposed only by comparison to Thomas’s definition of constructio. The comparison proves that de Balmes’s definition can be separated into the four essential causes in the same way as Thomas’s definition. This is strong evidence for the hypothesis of linkage between de Balmes’s linguistic theory of the sixteenth century and the Modistic theory of the fourteenth century. The most significant difference between the two definitions is found in the nomenclature. Both authors apparently refer to the same concept, but de Balmes addresses it as compositio whereas Thomas addressed it as constructio. In Section 6, it was observed that Western logicians used the term compositio while Western grammarians used the term constructio. In his Hebrew grammar, de Balmes adopted the concept of constructio as it was used by the Modists, and he translated the Latin term into Hebrew as ‫( הרכבה‬harkavah), thus extending the meaning of the Hebrew term that had previously been used in Hebrew grammar for a variety of meanings (see Section 3). When he translated his grammar into Latin, he did not use the original Latin term, but rather chose the term compositio. This is a reasonable translation of the Hebrew term harkavah, but it is not used in the Western grammatical tradition as a grammatical term of the same meaning as de Balmes used in his treatise. He thus preferred a term that was common in the philosophical and logical literature to the term that was common in the grammatical literature. Unlike de Balmes, Thomas did distinguish between compositio and constructio. He used the former for relationships in physics (and for a specific linguistic relationship) and the latter for relationships in language in general (see Section 6). De Balmes used the Latin term compositio consistently in all parts of his treatise for all uses of the Hebrew term harkavah.33 Although de Balmes distinguished between harkavat ha-ṭeva‘ (compositio naturae)34 in physics and ha-harkavah ha-shimushit (compositio regiminis)35 in language, he used the same term for them both. 33 There are few occurrences of constructio in the first chapters of Miqneh Abram (Ben-Arié, The Linguistic Theory, 54n35). I have proved that at least one occurrence of compositio in the Latin text of Miqneh Abram corresponds to the specific sense of the Modistic compositio rather than to the general sense of the Modistic constructio (Dror Ben-Arié, “‫מילות הטעם ב‘מקנה אברם’ לאברהם‬ ‫ מפגש בין הדקדוק העברי לדקדוק המערבי הספקולטיבי‬:‫דבלמש‬,” Leshonenu 75 [2013]: 305–6). 34 Miqneh Abram, p. i i. 35 Ibid., p. vi B.

Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram

As noted in Section 7, Thomas’s definition of constructio is in fact a summary of the preceding discussion in his work, and each of the elements of the definition has been discussed previously at length. De Balmes, however, defines harkavah at the very beginning of the chapter about syntax, and does not discuss the various elements of the definition either before posing it or afterward. This essentially divides the readers of his work into two audiences. Readers who are acquainted only with the sources of Hebrew grammar cannot understand the definition from within the treatise. Readers familiar with Latin grammar may recognize the definition and apply their knowledge to understand de Balmes’s intentions when introducing the concept. For example, modi significandi (see Section 5) are an essential concept in Thomas’s grammatical theory, which he carefully defines and demonstrates in all parts of his work. At the beginning of his book, which is named after the modes of signification, Thomas even declares that they are the principles of the science of grammar.36 De Balmes occasionally relies on this concept, which he calls darche ha-hora’ah (‫“ דרכי ההוראה‬modes of signification,” modi significationis), but he never defines it. When Thomas discusses the various types of construction one by one, he focuses on the congruence rules of the modes of signification of the constituents, relying on the theoretical basis developed in the second part of his book. We can identify traces of this approach in de Balmes’s discussion of the composition types, but a reader who is not acquainted with the Modistic theory may not even notice it.

9.  THE DIVISION OF HARKAVAH We noted in Section 3 that de Balmes divides harkavah into four “parts,” or, in modern terminology, distinguishes four types of harkavah. I have shown that the definition of harkavah reflects Thomas’s definition of constructio. In the same way, the division of harkavah reflects the Modistic division of constructio carried out by Thomas of Erfurt, mentioned in Section 6. Table 4 presents the four types of harkavah in Miqneh Abram in parallel to the four types of constructio in Grammatica speculativa. Each Hebrew term is followed by its transliteration, its Latin counterpart in Miqneh Abram, and a literal translation of the Hebrew term into English. Examples of each type can be found in Table 1 and Table 2.

36 Gram. Spec., 134–5.

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Part Two    The Middle Ages and the Renaissance Table 4  The Division of Harkavah vs. the Division of Constructio De Balmes’s Miqneh Abram

Thomas’s Grammatica speculativa

(‫ העומדת‬or) ‫הרכבת הפעלים הבודדת‬ constructio intransitiva actuum harkavat ha-pe‘alim ha-bodedet (ha-‘omedet) “intransitive construction of acts” compositio verborum intransitiva “isolated (or stationary) composition of the verbs” (‫ העומדת‬or) ‫הרכבת הענינים הבודדת‬ harkavat ha-‘inyanim ha-bodedet (ha-‘omedet) constructio intransitiva personarum “intransitive construction of persons” compositio rerum intransitiva “isolated (or stationary) composition of the matters” ‫הרכבת הפעלים הנודדת‬ constructio transitiva actuum harkavat ha-pe‘alim ha-nodedet “transitive construction of acts” compositio verborum transitiva “transitionary composition of the verbs” ‫הרכבת הענינים הנודדת‬ constructio transitiva personarum harkavat ha-‘inyanim ha-nodedet “transitive construction of persons” compositio rerum transitiva “transitionary composition of the matters”

In the first chapter of Ben-Arié, The Linguistic Theory, each of the four types of harkavah in Miqneh Abram is carefully analyzed and the correlations between these types and the four types of constructio in Grammatica speculativa are identified.37 It is shown that de Balmes’s division differs from Thomas’s division in several significant aspects. This demonstrates that de Balmes processes and refines Modistic definitions rather than merely copying them. The influence of Modistic theory on de Balmes is striking, but so are the substantial differences between his theory and the Modistic theory. We noted in Section 8 that the Hebrew term ‫( הרכבה‬harkavah) reflects the Modistic term constructio, but de Balmes translates it back into Latin as compositio. A similar phenomenon occurs here. The Modistic terms constructio actuum and constructio personarum are reflected in the Hebrew terms ‫הרכבת הפעלים‬ (harkavat ha-pe‘alim) and ‫( הרכבת הענינים‬harkavat ha-‘inyanim) respectively, and the latter terms are translated back into Latin as compositio verborum and compositio rerum, terms that bear little resemblance to the original terms.38

37 Ben-Arié, The Linguistic Theory, 65–100. 38 ‫( פעלים‬pe‘alim) has the meaning of actions, but it also has the meaning of verbs, which is more common in a grammatical context.

Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram

The Hebrew terms in Miqneh Abram are not necessarily literal translations of the corresponding Latin terms of the Western grammatical tradition. De Balmes may select terms from the Hebrew grammatical tradition and give them new meanings, or he may even coin terms of his own. The terms in the Latin text of Miqneh Abram are in general literal translations of the terms in the Hebrew text, and they may thus be different from the original Latin terms. The terms intransitivus and transitivus are an exception. De Balmes uses these well-known terms from the Western grammar in the Latin text of Miqneh Abram regardless of the corresponding Hebrew terms (though we do find other terms as well, such as immanens instead of intransitivus).

10. CONCLUSION Miqneh Abram is a unique work. This Hebrew grammar substantially differs from any former treatise of the Andalusian and Qimḥian traditions. The hypothesis pursued here is that the uniqueness of Miqneh Abram is, at least partially, due to the influence on its author of Western Speculative grammar. In this paper, I have demonstrated this hypothesis through the definition of a specific term, harkavah. I have shown that a possible explanation for the puzzling nature of this obscure definition could be in its having been copied (almost literally) from Thomas of Erfurt’s Modistic work. While the definition is in context in its original location, where it can be understood, it is out of context in its new location, and cannot be understood without external assistance. This, however, is but a single example of the Modistic school’s influence on de Balmes. Many additional terms from Miqneh Abram can be analyzed using similar methodology. The Modistic influence is not limited to the definitions. Similarities can also be identified in the divisions of concepts and even among the examples. The Modistic influence is not limited to syntax either. Modistic terminology can be identified in other parts of Miqneh Abram as well. Thomas’s fourteenth-century work can thus be used as the key to understanding de Balmes’s work of the sixteenth century. The textual similarity between the works of the two authors is an expression of substantial congruence between the two theories. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, there was no general interest in theoretical grammar and little interest in syntax. Yet, Abraham de Balmes, a Jewish humanist of the Renaissance, shared the motivation of the Modists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and intended to apply their universal vision to the Hebrew language. De Balmes did not explicitly mention any Latin grammarian in his

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book, yet one can find in his treatise traces of the grammars of Donatus and Priscian, familiar to anyone who studied Latin in medieval Europe, and of the works of the Modistic grammarians. In order to adapt Modistic concepts to the Hebrew language, de Balmes attached new meanings to traditional Hebrew grammatical terms. De Balmes’s concept of harkavah is, on the one hand, an extension of the concept of harkavah of previous Hebrew grammarians, while, on the other hand, it is related strongly to the Modistic concept of constructio, and in particular to the concept of constructio in Thomas of Erfurt’s Grammatica speculativa. De Balmes can thus be regarded as a follower of the Andalusian grammarians who introduced principles of Arabic grammar into their Hebrew grammars. The focus of this paper is the similarity between the theories of de Balmes and Thomas of Erfurt. The differences between them have not been dealt with here, but are discussed thoroughly in Ben-Arié, The Linguistic Theory.

CHAPTER 5

The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of Giordano Ruffo’s De medicina equorum and Its Language MICHAEL RYZHIK

T

he study of the language of translations is important for the history of any language. It is especially important in the case of medieval Hebrew, which was not spoken for centuries, and existed only in written sources. In the Middle Ages, almost all linguistic innovations were born in translations, and almost all new themes entered the Hebrew language through translated works. The term “Tibbonian Hebrew” became almost a synonym for medieval Hebrew1 and, today, the most studied stratum or type of medieval Hebrew is actually the Arabicinfluenced one.2 This is justified by the fact that this stratum was the most influential one in the early Middle Ages. Yet other centers of active translating work also existed. In Italy, this work was undertaken in the medical field, first because southern Italy was a renowned center of medicine—the Salernitan School in particular—and also because medicine was a prevalent occupation of Italian

1 About all these processes, see E. Goldenberg, “Hebrew Language, Medieval,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 16, cols. 1616–42; and A. S. Halkin, “Translation and Translators (Medieval),” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 15, cols. 1318–29. The most extensive discussion and description of the translated literature can be found in M. Steinschneider, Die hebraeischen Uebersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher, 2 vols. (Berlin: Kommissionsverlag des Bibliographischen Bureaus, 1893). 2 About this language, see M. H. Goshen-Gottstein, Syntax and Vocabulary of Mediaeval Hebrew as Influenced by Arabic (revised by S. Assif and U. Melammed) ( Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006).

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Jews, so that the word medico almost became a synonym for the word Jew.3 In this paper, I wish to deal with the first (as far as I know) Hebrew text written in the field of hippiatria, equine medicine, the medical care of horses. It is clear that this theme was very important for medieval man. The Hebrew translation in question was made from the first European tractate dedicated to this theme. This tractate, De medicina equorum, was written by Giordano Ruffo or Jordanus Rufus, a farrier at the court of Emperor Frederick II, who belonged to the highest aristocracy of the kingdom (the signature of his grandfather appears on the testament of Frederick II). After the emperor’s death in 1250, Giordano Ruffo sided with Conrad in the conflict with Manfred; he was imprisoned, and died in captivity before 1256.4 He composed De medicina equorum while in prison. This treatise, in Latin, became famous, and its manuscripts and translations circulated widely throughout Europe. A total of 155 manuscripts and 13 printed editions are known. There exist forty-seven Latin manuscripts, eighty-eight manuscripts in Italian dialects, one in Galician, two in Catalan, one in Occitan, seven in French, and six in German. De medicina equorum was also translated into Hebrew—though we do not know for whom the text was destined—and one manuscript of this translation remains: the Oxford, Bodleian Uri 440 (Nb. 2007). Steinschneider mentions this manuscript5 and, following him, other researchers refer to Steinschneider’s mention but do not discuss it any further.6 This translation contributes to the study of medieval Hebrew from different perspectives. First, it is the first veterinary text in Hebrew and shows the ways the translator attempted to resolve problems related to the description of veterinary science in Hebrew. Secondly, we also have the Latin original, so this translation allows us to study the influence of Latin (and Italian) on Hebrew. Apart from its relevance for Hebrew linguistics, this manuscript is an important item in the study of the complicated family tree composed of the different manuscripts and translations of De medicina equorum.7 3 A. Milano, Storia degli Ebrei in Italia (Torino: Einaudi, 1963). 4 For the biography of Rufus, see A. Montinaro, “Per la tradizione del De medicina equorum di Giordano Ruffo” (con un elenco dei testimoni manoscritti), Medioevo Letterario d’Italia 7 (2010): 30–2. 5 Steinschneider, Die hebraeischen, 807. 6 See the bibliographical indications in A. Montinaro, “Un volgarizzamento inedito da Giordano Ruffo: Cola de Jennaro, Della natura del cavallo e sua nascita (Tunisi, 1479),” in La veterinaria antica e medievale, testi greci, latini. arabi e romanzi, ed. V. Ortoleva and M.R. Petringa, Atti del II Convegno internazionale (Catania, October 3–5, 2007; Lugano 2009), 498n123. 7 See the discussion in Montinaro, “Un volgarizzamento,”and Montinaro, “Per la tradizione.”

The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of De medicina equorum

The translation is anonymous. According to Malachi Beit-Arié, the only remaining manuscript with the Hebrew translation was written in Italy, between the 1430s and 1470s, in Sephardic script.8 This seems to indicate that the translation was written in southern Italy; the type of Italian words found in the translation point in the same direction, as we shall see later. The text of the translation covers 110 pages of the Oxford manuscript. It is a full translation of the Latin original. Of course, we do not know from which manuscript the Hebrew translation was made, but it is very close to the only official edition, the Molin edition (1818), which is based on the only existing manuscript.9 In the following discussion, citations of this latter edition are used as counterparts to the Hebrew translation. The book consists of a first part, made up of four chapters about hippology, the study of the horse, and a second part, dedicated to the description and cure of equine diseases; this second part comprises sixty chapters, each one dealing with a different disease and its cure. As an example, I will list the titles of the first twenty-three chapters of the second part in Latin (here and elsewhere in this article as they appear in Geronimo Molin, ed., Jordani Ruffi Calabriensis Hippiatria [Padova, Typis Seminarii Patavini, 1818]) with the corresponding Hebrew translation (cc. 43a–43b):   1) Capitulum 1. De verme. ‫השער הראשון מהתולע‬   2) De verme volativo. ‫השני מהתולע המעופף‬   3) De anticuore. ‫השלישי מן האניקורי‬   4) De strangullione. ‫הרביעי מהסטראנגוליוני‬   5) De vivulis. ‫החמישי מן היוולי‬   6) De dolore ex superfluo sanguine. ‫הששי מהכאב הבא מדם יתר‬   7) De dolore ex ventositate. ‫השביעי מכאב הבא מרוח‬   8) De dolore ex superflua comestione. ‫השמיני מן הכאב הבא מאכילה‬   9) De dolore ex retentione urinae. ‫התשיעי מהכאב הבא מעוצר השתן‬ 10) De inflatione testiculorum. ‫העשירי מנפיחת מבושי הסוס‬ 11) De equo infuso vel infundito. ‫האחד עשר מסוס שהוא ִאנְפּוסֹו‬ 12) De pulcino seu de pulsivo. ‫השנים עשר מהפּולְסיּו‬ 13) De infustito. ‫השלשה עשר מהפוסטיטו‬ 14) De scalmato. ‫הארבעה עשר מהשקאלמאטו‬ 15) De infirmitate aragiati. ‫החמשה עשר מן האראייטו‬ 8 See the description on the website of the National Library, Jerusalem (http://aleph.nli. org.il/F/7P8EY758MDTIHSE4PYRJHFGXIHB18RI3QYVIJ43TG6NLC41A1H54928?func=find-acc&acc_sequence=005575860). 9 For its characteristics and evaluation, see Montinaro, “Per la tradizione,” 42–3.

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16) De cimoira. ‫הששה עשר מן הצימוריאה‬ 17) De frigiditate capitis. ‫השבעה עשר מקרירות הראש‬ 18) De infirmitate oculorum. ‫השמונה עשר מחולי העינים‬ 19) De malo oris. ‫התשעה עשר מחולי הפה‬ 20) De laesione linguae. ‫העשרים מהזק הלשון‬ 21) De laesionibus omnibus tergi. ‫ּ האחד ועשרים מהזקי הּט ִֵרגו‬ 22) De laesione corii. ‫השנים ועשרים מהקורנו‬ 23) De pulmone. ‫השלשה ועשרים מהפולמוני‬ We can see that some Italian titles remain almost unchanged in the Hebrew translation: the title of chapter 3, de anticuore in Latin, is rendered as ‫מן האנטיקורי‬ in Hebrew, for example. Other titles are translated literally, such as the title of chapter 2, de verme volativo—‫המעופף מהתולע‬. The Hebrew translation follows the Latin original almost literally. In many cases, the Latin original is, if not indispensable, at least useful to understand the Hebrew text. We do not know if the translator himself wrote the manuscript, but there are indications that the scribe of the translation also had the Latin text, either in Latin or Hebrew characters. It seems, at times, that the scribe began to write a Latin word, deleted it and then wrote the corresponding Hebrew word: Original Latin text: et ob hoc crura illius quotidie ingrossantur Hebrew translation: ‫( וכפי זה י(נ)[ת]עבושוקיו תמיד‬cc. 36b–37a)

Similarly, he began to write altera, and changed it to ‫האחר‬: Original Latin text: maxillam inferiorem superiori altera longiorem Hebrew translation: ‫( הלחי התחתון יותר ארוך מן (אלטי) האחר העליון‬c. 42a)

In most cases, the anonymous translator was very careful to translate different Latin synonyms with different Hebrew terms. The different expressions for the frequent locutions with the general sense of “as I have said,” therefore, are translated consistently with various Hebrew expressions. Dixi and praedixi are always translated by ‫אמרתי‬, as in the following examples: Original Latin text: Hoc peracto, ut dixi Hebrew translation: ‫( וכאשר נעשה זה כאשר אמרתי‬c. 40a)

The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of De medicina equorum Original Latin text: veluti praedixi Hebrew translation: ‫( כאשר אמרתי‬c. 39a)

Narravi is always translated ‫ספרתי‬, for example: Original Latin text: sicut superius narravi Hebrew translation: ‫( כאשר ספרתי למעלה‬c. 38a)

Enarravi is translated by ‫הגדתי‬: Original Latin text: et deinde, sicut superius enarravi Hebrew translation: ‫( ואחר כן כאשר הגדתי למעלה‬c. 40a)

The passive form dictum est is translated by the passive form ‫נאמר‬: Original Latin text: sicut dictum est superius Hebrew translation: ‫( כאשר נאמר למעלה‬c. 38b)

Less consistently, yet still evidencing the translator’s tendency to provide variety, the different variants of vulgariter, meaning “as is said in the popular dialect,” an introductory phrase from the Italian vernacular, are generally translated as ‫בלשון המוני‬, as the following examples show: Original Latin text: Est quidem et alia forma quae ad medium morsum vulgariter nuncupatur Hebrew translation: ‫ואמנם יש צורה אחרת מרסן שהוא נקרא בלשון המוני אמיזו מורסו‬ (cc. 39b–40a)

Vulgo is translated by ‫לעז‬: Original Latin text: quod vulgo dicitur traginellus Hebrew translation: ‫( הנקרא בלעז טראיינילו שלא‬c. 36b) Original Latin text: minratur, et dicitur sculmatus in vulgo Hebrew translation: ‫ש ַק ִלמַטו‬ ְ ‫( וזה הוא נקרא בלעז‬c. 42b)

Vulgari vocabulo is rendered by the Hebrew locution ‫בשם בלעז‬: Original Latin text: et hic dicitur vulgari vocabulo infustitus Hebrew translation: ‫( וזה החולי יאמר בשם לעז אינפוסטיטו‬c. 51b)

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With all this literality and consistency, the anonymous translator often abandons the word-to-word translation in terms of grammar, syntax,and lexical use. Let us examine two examples from the lexical field; these also serve as examples of the Hebraization of the translation. The word Deus, God, which could be difficult to translate in a book by a Christian author, is rendered as ‫אמת‬: Original Latin text: non quod per omnia possim ea, quae eidem equo et suo generi pertinent, subtilite indagare; sed, prout mihi Deus monstraverit, recto ordine ponam quod expertus sum ego Jordanus Rufus de Calabria miles in marestalla quondam domini Imperatoris Friderici Secundi, sacrae memoriae Hebrew translation: ‫לא אשר אוכל לבאר בדקדוק הדברים כלם אשר הם מיוחדים‬ ‫לסוס או למין שלו אבל סמוך לאמת בסדר ישר כפי אשר נסיתי אני יורדנוס רופוס‬ .‫( מקלאבריאה הפרש באוריות האדון האימפרטור פירדריקו זכרונו לקדשה‬c. 34b)

The second example is the translation of Christian months by Hebrew ones; Julii, for instance, is translated by ‫ אב‬and Augusti is ‫אלול‬: Original Latin text: Equus vero pro meliori ipsius equitari taediose non debet a medietate Julii usque per totum mensem Augusti, vel parum in antea Hebrew translation: ‫ומן הטוב לסוס הוא שאין ראוי לרכוב אותו יותר מדי מחצי חדש‬ .‫( אב ועד כל חדש אלול או מעט קודם‬c. 38a)

It seems that instead of Januarii, the scribe wanted to write ‫חורף‬, “winter,” but corrected with ‫חודששבט‬, another hint that the scribe could also be the translator: Original Latin text: Similiter dico im mense Januarii Hebrew translation: ‫( כמו כן אומר העשות זה הדבר עצמו בח(ור)[ד]ש שבט‬c. 38a)

And in autumno is translated by ‫בתקופת תשרי‬: Original Latin text: in veris tempore semel, in aestate semel, in autumno semel, et in hieme semel Hebrew translation: ‫פעם אחת בזמן האביב בקיץ פעם אחת בתקופת תשרי פעם אחת‬ ‫( ובחורף פעם אחת‬c. 38b)

The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of De medicina equorum

This translation of the Gregorian months with the months of the Hebrew calendar is not obvious because the contemporary Jewish manuscripts from Italy written in Hebrew usually bore the names of the months used by the Gentiles.10 Let us now see what linguistic traits are characteristic of our translation.

THE HEBREW TRAITS INFLUENCED BY ARABIC First, as in any Hebrew text written in any land after the time of the Tibbonians, our translation evidences several linguistic phenomena for which Arabic influence is attested; it also includes structures that seem to be influenced by Arabic but could also have come from Italian. One of the most salient features of this kind is the extensive use of the word ‫ אמנם‬as an introductory adverb, in a sense closer to “but” than to “truly.”11 As shown above, our translator usually tried to find precise equivalents for the various synonyms. The situation is the opposite in the case of ‫אמנם‬. Many Latin adverbs—autem, tamen, quoque, itaque, nempe, denique—are translated by ‫ ;אמנם‬for example: Original Latin text: Post autem reditum equi ad stabulum Hebrew translation:‫( ואמנם אחרי שוב הסוס אל האבוס‬c. 36a) Original Latin text: Sciendum tamen est quod taediosa et insueta equitatio serotina minime prodest equo Hebrew translation: ‫ואמנם יש לדעת שהרכיבה העוברת השיעור והבלתי שוקטת‬ ‫( הנעשית בערב אינה מועלת לסוס‬c. 38a) Original Latin text: Sciendum est quoque quod equus et diligentius custoditus Hebrew translation: ‫( ואמנם יש לדעת כי הסוס השמור היטב וכראוי‬c. 38b) Original Latin text: De doctrina itaque dico subsequenter Hebrew translation: ‫( ואמנם אומר מלמוד הסוס אחר זה‬c. 38b) Original Latin text: Unum nempe utile non modicum videtur

10 See, for example, U. Cassuto, The Jews in Florence during the Renaissance [in Hebrew], trans. M. Hartom ( Jerusalem, 1967), 122 and passim. 11 Goshen-Gottstein, Syntax and Vocabulary, 147–8, 208.

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Part Two    The Middle Ages and the Renaissance Hebrew translation: ‫( ואמנם ראוי להזהר דבר אחר לא מעט‬c. 39b) Original Latin text: Sciendum est denique quod pulcritudo factionum equi veratius et aptius dignosci potest Hebrew translation: ‫ואמנם יש לדעת שיופי תכונת הסוס יוכל להודע יותר בברור‬ ‫( ובמפורסם‬c. 42a)

Sometimes (rarely) the word ‫ אמנם‬is added where the Latin text bears no corresponding word: Original Latin text: Troctare dixi saepius per arata Hebrew translation: ‫ואמנם אמרתי להפסיע את הסוס בפסיעת הטרוטו פעמים רבות‬ ‫( בשדות החרושים‬c. 39a)

Most of the time, however, the word ‫ אמנם‬translates the Latin vero, its literal equivalent; for example: Original Latin text: Unum vero non est oblivioni tradendum Hebrew translation: ‫( ואמנם אין ראוי לעזוב דבר אחד והוא שיאכל הסוס כך‬c. 36b) Original Latin text: si vero os molle ita et tenerum Hebrew translation: ‫( אמנם אם היה לו כבר פה רך ורטוב‬c. 40b) Original Latin text: auriculas vero parvas Hebrew translation: ‫( ואמנם האזנים קטנות‬c. 41a) Original Latin text: Minuit vero quum nascitur habens oculum vel auriculam, aut nares aliis parviores Hebrew translation: ‫ואמנם הוא מחסר כשהוא נולד עם עין או אוזן או הנחירים‬ ‫( האחת קטנה מן האחרת‬c. 42a) Original Latin text: praeterea vero mane et sero intantum quotidie agitentur Hebrew translation: ‫( ואמנם אחר כן ינוענעו כל כך בבקר ובערב תמיד‬c. 44a) Original Latin text: Si vero vulnus sit in pectore Hebrew translation: ‫( ואמנם אם תהיה המכה בחזה‬c. 45a)

The word verumtamen, another literal equivalent of ‫אמנם‬, also is rendered with this Hebrew adverb. Original Latin text: Equitator verumtamen, postquam equum suaviter adscenderit Hebrew translation: ‫( ואמנם אחרי אשר רכב הרוכב את הסוס בנחת‬c. 38b)

The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of De medicina equorum

The presence of ‫ אמנם‬in the translation can be explained by the literal translation of the Latin equivalents, and by a need for clarity. Other factors explain the extensive use of ‫אמנם‬. Usually, the use of ‫ אמנם‬in the Arabic-influenced Hebrew is explained by its similarity to the Arab ‘innama.12 The Hebrew adverb is also very similar to the Latin immo, a word with a similar meaning, which often is translated by ‫אמנם‬. Original Latin text: Imo custodiatur, prout dixi superius Hebrew translation: ‫( ואמנם יזהר כאשר אמרתי למעלה‬c. 38a)

To render expressions meaning “truly,” “really,” the translator is bound to use another locution such as ‫ ;באמת‬for example: Original Latin text: et hoc certe dico fore utilius et salubrius equo Hebrew translation: ‫ואני אומר באמת היות זה הדבר יותר מועיל ומצליח לסוס‬ (c. 39b)

Another characteristic word of the Arabic-influenced literature in Hebrew, ‫שלמות‬,13 is widely used in our translation to render different Latin expressions such as ad plenum, complendo, perfecte; for example: Original Latin text: ita quo ad plenum et secure membra sua circum circa tangantur Hebrew translation: ‫עד שימשש האדם בשלמות ובבטחה את אבריו תמיד סביב‬ (c. 35a) Original Latin text: ideoque efficientur equorum corporibus nutribiliores et refectiores ad plenum Hebrew translation: ‫ולזה יעשו יותר זנים וממלאים בשלמות לגופות הסוסים‬ (c. 37a) Original Latin text: frenum imponatur eidem, ut ad plenum satisfaciat equitanti Hebrew translation: ‫( יושם לו הרסן שיס(ק)[פ]יק לרוכב בשלמות‬c. 40a) Original Latin text: quod facit equus quinque annorum spatio pro complendo 12 Goshen-Gottstein, Syntax and Vocabulary, 147; E. Goldenberg, “Hebrew Language,” col. 1632. 13 Goldenberg, “Hebrew Language,” col. 1627.

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Part Two    The Middle Ages and the Renaissance Hebrew translation: ‫( וזה נעשה לסוס בשהות חמש שנים בשלמות‬c. 40b) Original Latin text: quod postquam equus perfecte edoctus fuerit et consuetus ad frenandum Hebrew translation: ‫( שאחר שהגיע הסוס אל המנהג לקבל הרסן בשלמות‬c. 41a) Original Latin text: pulcritudo membrorum et factionum equi perfectius demonstratur Hebrew translation: ‫( יתפרסם יופי האברים ותכונת הסוס יותר בשלמות‬c. 42a)

When ad plenum has the meaning of “full,” the expression ‫ במלוי‬is used: Original Latin text: et quia equus, nisi bibat sufficienter ad plenum, non posset carnes assumere competentes Hebrew translation: ‫ובעבור שזולתי אם ישתה הסוס בהסתפקות במלוי לא יוכל לקבל‬ ‫( בשר כראוי‬p. 36b)

Sometimes, the acquisitions of the Arabic-influenced Hebrew are used to translate Latin syntactical turns of speech. Thus, the Latin nisi is translated consistently by ‫זולתי אם‬, which originated and spread under the influence of the Arab dun inna;14 for example: Original Latin text: et quia equus, nisi bibat sufficienter ad plenum, non posset carnes assumere competentes Hebrew translation: ‫ובעבור שזולתי אם ישתה הסוס בהסתפקות במלוי לא יוכל‬ ‫( לקבל בשר כראוי‬p. 36b) Original Latin text: et hoc patet quia equus non posset perfecte nec recto ordine effrenari, nisiquatuor dentes sibi Hebrew translation: ‫שהסוסים אינם יכולים להתרסן היטב ובסדר ישר זולתי אם‬ ‫( יעקרו לו ארבע שינים כאשר נאמר‬c. 41a)

Sometimes, nisi is translated by ‫ זולתי‬without ‫( אם‬this use in Arabic-influenced Hebrew resembles the use of dun without inna in Arabic):15 Original Latin text: Sciendum est tamen quod sectones agitari non debent, nisi duorum dierum spatium transeat Hebrew translation: ‫אך יש לדעת כי אין ראוי לנענע הסיטוני זולתי אחר עבור‬ ‫( שהות שני ימים‬c. 44a) 14 Goshen-Gottstein, Syntax and Vocabulary, 168. 15 Goshen-Gottstein, Syntax and Vocabulary, 170; Goldenberg, “Hebrew Language,” col. 1627.

The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of De medicina equorum

Another frequently used Arabic-influenced construct involves the use of ‫יותר‬ before an adjective or an adverb;16 for example: Original Latin text: ideoque efficientur equorum corporibus nutribiliores et refectiores ad plenum Hebrew translation: ‫ולזה יעשו יותר זנים וממלאים בשלמות לגופות הסוסים‬ (c. 37a) Original Latin text: et quanto ungula equi circuitu ferri utitur strictiori, tanto major et fortior efficitur, prout decet Hebrew translation: ‫וכל אשר הצפורן הוא נוהג יותר צרה את קצה סביבות ברזל‬ ‫( הסוס כן יעשה יותרגדול וחזקכאשר ראוי‬c. 37b) Original Latin text: fortior retinetur, et ita poterit equus salubrius et securius fatigari Hebrew translation:‫( וכפי זה יוכל לטרוח יותרבהצלה ובבטח‬c. 37a) Original Latin text: quod levius et debilius equo omnibus aliis exsistit Hebrew translation: ‫שהוא עומד לסוס יותר בקלות וחלישות מן כל האחרים‬ (c. 39b) Original Latin text: Et nota quod quanto equus ferratur junior, tanto ejus ungulae molliores et debiliores fiunt Hebrew translation: ‫ודע כי כל אשר יושמו הברזילים לסוס יותר בבחרות כך יעשו‬ ‫( צפרניויותר רכים וחלושים‬c. 38a)

This construct may be influenced also by the Italian più, “more,” placed before the adjective and the verb. This is just one of the numerous constructs that originated in Arabic-influenced Hebrew and found counterparts in the Italian vernacular. While the Arabic influence on other linguistic phenomena has been established, the Latin influence also needs to be considered, as in the case of an infinitive used as a verbal noun; the verb comdere as a subject is translated by ‫ לאכול‬with the same grammatical function, for example: Original Latin text: Unde herbae et foenum et de aliis abudanter comedere, humores vermi potius augmentaret Hebrew translation: ‫כי העשב והפינו ולאכול בשפע מן הדברים האחרים יגדלו זובי‬ ‫( התולע‬c. 44a)

16 Goshen-Gottstein, Syntax and Vocabulary, 95–9.

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This use of the infinitive “to eat” as a subject may have come from the Arabic equivalent with masdar,17 but it may also have been influenced by Latin. In the same vein, Arabic and Latin (or Italian) may have influenced equally the use of the demonstrative pronoun before the noun.18 For example, tali modo is translated by ‫הדרך בזה‬: Original Latin text: tunc illae glandulae vel vermes tali modo salubriter extrahantur Hebrew translation: ‫אז יוצאו הגלאנדולי ההם או התולע בזה הדרך בהצלה‬ (c. 44a)

Here are some additional examples: Original Latin text: abluendo, ettali utatur cura novem dierum spatio transeunte Hebrew translation: ‫ אחר כן תורחץ‬.‫וינהג זאת ההנהגה עד עבור שהות תשעה ימים‬ ‫( המכה פעמים‬c. 45a) Original Latin text: Et nota quod si ex verme remanserit crus inflatum, tali subveniatur manerie Hebrew translation: ‫( ודע שאם ישאר השוק נפוח מן התולע יעזר לו בזה התאר‬c. 45a)

THE LATIN INFLUENCE Let us now turn to the phenomena that attest the Latin influence. The most common one is the wide use of the passive voice; for example:19 Original Latin text: Et sciendum est quod equus pro meliori ipsius laqueari vel domari non debet, nisi aetas duorum annorum transeat

17 Goshen-Gottstein, Syntax and Vocabulary, 70–6. 18 For such traits, see M. Ryzhik, “Notes on the Language of the Hebrew Letters from Toscana in the 15th Century” [in Hebrew], in Mas’at Aharon, Aharon Dotan Festschrift, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher and Hayyim E. Kohen ( Jerusalem, 2010), 444–6. 19 See M. Ryzhik, “The Linguistic Character of the Translation of the Hebrew Translation of the New Testament” [in Hebrew], Brit ‘Ivrit ‘Olamit 18 (2007): 59–73.

The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of De medicina equorum Hebrew translation: ‫ויש לדעתשהסוס לטוב ענינו אין ראוי אשר ילכד ואשר יחנך עד‬ ‫( שיעבור פרק שתישנים‬c. 36a) Original Latin text: et quia nisi ipso mediante dominus inter privatos et alios decenter discerni non posset Hebrew translation: ‫ובעבור שאם לא בעבורו לא יוכל להבחן האדון בין בעלי סודו‬ ‫( והאחרים‬c. 34b) Original Latin text: quum videntur in equi pectore vel in coxis juxta testiculos glandulae, quas praedixi, tumefieri Hebrew translation: ‫כשיראו בחזה הסוס או בשוקים אצל המבושים להתפח‬ ‫( הגלאנדולי אשר אמרתי‬c. 44a)

In the last example, the use of the infinitive ‫ התפח‬for the passive voice may be the trace of an ancient tradition, the verb being documented in Shabbatai Donnolo’s Pirqe Hippoqrat 80:4: ‫לא תתרכך להתפח מהרהב ימי משפט הקדח (ו)תהרא שונים‬

Some other examples: Original Latin text: Nota tamen quod equus equitari non debet usque ad diem tertiam … Deinde vero diu et sine modo, ut dixi, die qualibet equitetur Hebrew translation: ‫…דע אמנם שאין ראוי להרכב הסוס עד היום השלישי‬ ‫( אחר כן ירכב הסוס בכל יום עת ארוך‬c. 45a) Original Latin text: statim equus de consueta vena colli juxta caput, … minuatur Hebrew translation: ‫( מיד יוקז הסוס מהווריד הנהוג של עורף אצל הראש‬c. 44a)

For the translation of the passive conjunctive, the translator uses modal verbs, such as ‫ ;יכול‬for example: Original Latin text: quoniam propter praecedentem laborem sudor tantus supevenit in eum, quod vix potest ob supervenientem noctem, ut condecet, desudare, ut equus more solito praebendetur Hebrew translation: ‫הטרח הקודם תתחייב לו הזיעה כל כך עד אשר בקושי תוכל לחלוף‬ ‫ממנו הזיעה כראוי בסבת הלילה הבא עליו על שיוכל להנתן לו בלילו כאשר נהג מקודם‬ (c. 38a)

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At times, he translates the passive voice with the active voice, using various constructs, such as the subject ‫ אדם‬conjugated with a verb in the singular: Original Latin text: ita quo ad plenum et secure membra sua circum circa tangantur Hebrew translation: ‫עד שימשש האדם בשלמות ובבטחה את אבריו תמיד סביב‬ (c. 36a)

Or with the impersonal plural: Original Latin text: postea pro potu ducatur ad aquam Hebrew translation: ‫( אחר כן יוליכוהו אל המים לשתות‬c. 36a)

Among many other Latin-influenced phenomena, note the translation of the doublet circum circa by ‫ ;סביב סביב‬for example: Original Latin text: glandulae illae ungulis manuum tantummodo circum circa scarnando et exterius radicitus exstirpentur Hebrew translation: ‫ויעקרו מן השרש הגלאנדולי ההן בצפרני הידים סביב סביב‬ ‫( בחתוך הבשר‬c. 44b) Original Latin text: et ponantur circum circa inflationes Hebrew translation: ‫( ויושמו סביב סביב לנפיחות‬c. 45b)

THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE Other constructs are influenced equally by Latin and Italian. A case in point is the wide use of the preposition ‫ מן‬with the meaning of ‫על‬, “about,” or ‫של‬, “of,” which can be influenced either by the Latin ablative or genitive, or by the use of the Italian prepositions di, de;20 for example: Original Latin text: inter cetera animalia a summo rerum opifice evidenter creata Hebrew translation: ‫( בין כל בעלי חיים הנבראים במפורסם מהפועלהעליון‬c. 34b) Original Latin text: qui ad honorem militarem etbellorum assiduam probitate, nobiliori animo delectantur 20 See M. Ryzhik, “Notes on the Language,” 446–7.

The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of De medicina equorum Hebrew translation: ‫מי אשר הם משתוקקים בנפש נכבד נצחון תמידי אל כשר פרשיי‬ ‫( מהמלחמות‬c. 34b) Original Latin text: Unde dicendum est primo de creatione et nativitate equi; secundo de captione et domatione ipsius; tertio de custodia et doctrina; quarto de cognitione pulcritudinis corporis, membrorum et factionum illius; quinto de infirmitatibus ejusdem tam naturalibus quam accidentalibus; sexto de medicinis ac remediis contra infirmitates praedictas valentibus Hebrew translation: ‫ שנייה מן‬.‫יש אם כן לבאר תחלה מיצירת הסוס ותולדתו‬ ‫ והאברים‬,‫ רביעייה מהכרת יופי הגוף‬.‫ שלישייה מהשמירה והלמוד‬.‫לכידתו וחנוכו‬ ‫ ששייה מהרפואות‬.‫ חמישייה מתחלואיו בין מהטבעיים בין המקריים‬.‫ותכונתו‬ ‫( ומההנהגות הנעשות נגד החליים הנזכרים‬c. 34b)

Sometimes, ‫ מן‬or ‫ של‬are omitted, perhaps under the influence of Latin, in which the use of cases makes the use of prepositions superfluous; for example: Original Latin text: quoniam usus eundi a juventate sine ferris nutrit naturaliter ungulas equi duras Hebrew translation: ‫כי ניהוג ההליכה מבלעדי הברזלים מן הבחרות הוא זן בטבע‬ ‫( את צפרניו הסוס קשים‬c. 38a)

Constructs that are more exotic are sometimes inspired by the Latin ablative; for example: Original Latin text: Simili modo de unguibus vel pedibus accidit qui quandoque naturaliter obliquantur Hebrew translation: ‫כמו כן יקרה מהצפרנים או הרגלים כי לפעמים יתעקמו בטבע‬ (c. 42b)

The use of the verb ‫ עמד‬in the sense of “to be” (stare, in Italian) must be attrib­ uted to the Italian influence;21 for example: Original Latin text: Est igitur freni quaedam forma, quae dicitur ad barram, eo quod ad duas barras extransverso et una per longum composita est, quod levius et debilius equo omnibus aliis exsistit

21 Ibid., 450–1.

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Part Two    The Middle Ages and the Renaissance Hebrew translation: ‫יש צורה אחת מרסן אשר הוא נקרא בעבור שהוא מורכב בשני‬ ‫בריחים מהאלכסון ואחד בארך שהוא עומד לסוס יותר בקלות וחלישות מן כל האחרים‬ (c. 39b) Original Latin text: Accidit subsequenter quod illa glandula, vermis dicta, quae exstat in equi pectore juxta corintantum aliquando universaliter augmentatur propter humores Hebrew translation: ‫יקרה כמו כן אשר הגלאנדולה ההיא הנקראת תולע שהיא‬ ‫( עומדת בחזה הסוס אצל הלב תגדל לפעמים כל כך בכח בעבור הזובים‬c. 46a)

In the next example, the verb ‫ עמד‬is used in the sense of to be on the horse, that is, in the sense of ‫ ישב‬or ‫רכב‬: Original Latin text: Oportet tamen equitatorem pro meliori in die equum adscendere et frequentidescendere, … ut assuescat in descendendo et adscendendo quum expedierit, super eum stare pacifice quam quiete Hebrew translation: ‫ואמנם צריך הרוכב וטוב הסוס לרכוב הסוס ולרדת ממנו פעמים‬ ‫רבות ביוםבנחת … שיתנהג ברכיבה ובירידה כשיצטרך לעמוד עליו בהשקט ובשלום‬ (c. 40b)

A construct that seems to be influenced by Italian is the frequent use of the personal pronouns between the subject and the predicate, when the predicate is expressed by a participle. It could be described as casus pendens, but its great frequency must be explained. It cannot come from Latin since the equivalent Latin structures do not appear in the source text. The following question also arises: why is this construct used only with the participle in the present (‫)בינוני‬ and not in the future (‫ )יִקְט ֹל‬or in the past (‫) ָקטַל‬. It seems to me that this is a quest for some substitute for the auxiliary verbs, or copula, so frequently used in Italian. Here are some examples of this use: Original Latin text: et quanto ungula equi circuitu ferri utitur strictiori, tanto major et fortior efficitur Hebrew translation: ‫וכל אשר הצפורן הוא נוהג יותר צרה את קצה סביבות ברזל‬ ‫( הסוס כן יעשה יותר גדול וחזק‬c. 37b) Original Latin text: quoniam usus eundi a juventate sine ferris nutrit naturaliter ungulas equi duras et magnas Hebrew translation: ‫כי ניהוג ההליכה מבלעדי הברזלים מן הבחרות הוא זן בטבע‬ ‫( את צפרניו הסוס קשים וגדולים‬c. 37b)

The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of De medicina equorum Original Latin text: et hae glandulae, sive scrofulae, aut testudines vulgariter nuncupantur Hebrew translation: ‫ואלו הגלנדולי הםנקראים בלעז שקרופולי או ֵטסְטּודִ ינֵי‬ (c. 42b) Original Latin text: qui vermis ex malis procreatur humoribus, calidis, superfluis Hebrew translation: ‫( וזה התולע הואנולד מזובים רעים חמים יתרי‬c. 44a) Original Latin text: et quia per loca dolentia perfluunt spiritus et humores Hebrew translation: ‫( ובעבור שהרוח והזובים הםרצים במקומות הכואבים‬c. 44b) Original Latin text: et haec infirmitas dicitur anticor Hebrew translation: ‫( וזה החולי הוא נקרא אנטיקורי‬c. 46a)

Sometimes, the pronoun precedes both the subject and the predicate: Original Latin text: specialiter ubi fabri more solito fabricantur Hebrew translation: ‫ובלבד במקום שהם נוהגים הנפחים לעשות את מלאכתם‬ (c. 39b) Original Latin text: quoniam concurrunt ibi undique spiritus et humores Hebrew translation: ‫( כי שם הם רצים הרוח והזובים‬c. 44a)

THE ITALIAN LEXICAL COMPONENT The Italian influence is obvious not just in the syntax of the translation. The loazim—the non-Hebrew components in the translation—are not transcribed from Latin but from Italian. Where the Latin text introduces the vernacular, it latinizes it, while the Hebrew translation transcribes the Italian words without transforming them; for example: Original Latin text: composita est, quod levius et debilius equo omnibus aliis exsistit. Est quidem et alia forma quae ad medium morsum vulgariter nuncupatur eo quod medium habet morsum extransverso Hebrew translation: ‫ואמנם יש צורה אחרת מרסן שהוא נקרא בלשון המוני אמיזומורסו‬ ‫( ולקח לו שם מהפעלה בעבור שיש לו חצי מורסו מאלכסון‬c. 40a)

The translator sometimes uses the Italian term and explains its meaning in Hebrew; for example: Original Latin text: equitator faciat ipsum per magissias, vel arata campestriamoderate troctare

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Part Two    The Middle Ages and the Renaissance Hebrew translation: ‫שהרוכב יפסיעהו בפסיעה (גדולה) גבוהה הנקראת טרוטארי‬ ‫( בשדות בלתי נעבדים‬c. 39a) Original Latin text: et hic vermis vulgariter dicitur volativus Hebrew translation: ‫( וזה התולע יקרא בלשון לעז וֹולַאטִילֵי ר"ל מעופף‬c. 46a)

Some terms are used without any explanation, perhaps because of their wide use in the common language, as it is the case with feno, “hay”: Original Latin text: vero eidem fiat stratum, vel cubile de palea, vel de foeno longo usque ad genua pro quiete Hebrew translation: ‫בלילה תעשה לו רפידה או מצע מתבן או מפינו עד הברכים‬ ‫( בעבור המנוחה‬c. 36b) Original Latin text: herbae et foenum ventrem dilatant et corpus Hebrew translation: ‫( העשב והפינו מרחיבים הבטן והגוף‬c. 37a)

As stated earlier, when the geographical origin of these dialectal forms can be identified, it appears that they are southern forms. Thus, celcu is used for gelsu and muru for moro:22 Original Latin text: De infirmitate muri vel celsi Hebrew translation: ‫( מחולי הַּמּורּואו ה ֵצלְצּו‬c. 77a)

Tergu for tergo:23 Original Latin text: De omnibus laesionibus tergi Hebrew translation: ‫( מכל נזק הטֵירְגּו‬c. 43a)

In the cases of aragiatu—“mad, furious”—and of meleferrutu (an equine disease), we find similar equivalents in the southernmost dialects: Original Latin text: De aragiato Hebrew translation: ‫( מן הַא ַריַיטּו‬c. 43a)

22 G. Rohlfs, Grammatica storica della lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti, vol. I (Fonetica) (Torino, 1966), 96–7. 23 See Rohlfs, Grammatica storica, 187–8.

The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of De medicina equorum

Salento dialects: arraggiatu (mad, furious):24 Original Latin text: De malferito in lumbis Hebrew translation: ‫( מה ַַמלֵיפְרּוטּו במתנים‬c. 43b)

Calabria dialects: maleferrutu (an equine disease)25

LINGUISTIC INNOVATIONS The translation includes linguistic innovations: until recently, the use of the hitpa’el ‫ התרסן‬was documented only in Modern Hebrew; we now have testimony of its use in medieval Hebrew to express, so it seems, the passive voice, under the Latin influence: Original Latin text: et hoc patet quia equus non posset perfecte nec recto ordine effrenari, nisiquatuor dentes sibi Hebrew translation: ‫שהסוסים אינם יכולים להתרסן היטב ובסדר ישר זולתי אם‬ ‫( יעקרו לו ארבע שינים כאשר נאמר‬cc. 40b–41a)

Let us conclude with a complex philological case without an obvious solution. The Hebrew ‫ דרורים‬translates the Latin arundines, which are explained immediately to be sanguisughe, “leeches”: Original Latin text: accipiantur arundines, quae sanguisugae dicuntur, et ponantur circum circa inflationes Hebrew translation: ‫הדרורים הנקראים סאנגווי סוצי ויושמו סביב סביב לנפיחות‬ ‫( שילקחו‬c. 45b)

The Latin arundines may stand for hirundo, and can also mean “swallows”; actually, in Maqre Dardeqe, a Hebrew–Italian–Arabic dictionary printed in Naples in 1480, ‫ דרור‬is translated as renninela, the dialect form of rondinella, “swallow”: )‫ דרר רניניליא כמו כדרור לעוף (משלי כו ב‬:‫מקרי דרדקי‬

24 See G. Rohlfs, Vocabolario dei Dialetti Salentini (Galatina, 1976), 56. 25 See G. Rohlfs, Nuovo Dizionario Dialettale delle Calabrie (Ravenna, 1977).

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There is no doubt, however, that the translator of De medicina equorum understood arundines to be “leeches” and “swallows”; indeed, in the sentence that immediately follows the one quoted above, he translates sanguisugi by ‫־מה יעלות‬ ‫הציצ‬: Original Latin text: crure, deinde extracto sanguine cum sanguisugis quantum exire poterit, implastretur totum Hebrew translation: ‫אשר יצא הדם עם תולעי המציצה כאשר יוכל לצאת יחבש כלו‬ ‫( ואחר‬c. 45b)

This use of ‫ דרור‬as a leech, as a worm, may be explained—besides the influence of the unusual word in the Latin text (arundines), which is very dubious—by two related words. The word ‫דורא‬, “intestinal worm,” exists in the Aramaic of the midrashim. The word is found with the same meaning in Bemidbar Rabbah, a well-known source that may not have been written in southern Italy but was edited there: )‫"והיה לכם לזרא" (במ' יא כ) שאהיה נותן דורא במעיהם (במדבר רבה ז ד‬.

A similar form existed in the Arabic dialect of southern Italy, as evidenced in the same Maqre Dardeqe: ‫ תלע וירמי ובע' דורא‬:‫מקרי דרדקי‬

It should be added that very similar words with the meaning “leech” exist in the southernmost dialects—in Calabria: addera, addedda26; in Salento: addedda.27 Various linguistic phenomena that are characteristic of the Hebrew translation of De medicina equorum have been reviewed in this article. It is clear that they must be studied further, in detail, and that they can help us describe and understand the Hebrew written in Italy.

26 See Rohlfs, Nuovo Dizionario, 57. 27 See Rohlfs, Vocabolario dei Dialetti Salentini, 864.

CHAPTER 6

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher* CARMELA SARANGA

THE BOOK OF JOSSIPON AND THE BOOK OF JASHER AS WORKS OF HISTORIOGRAPHY

T

he author of the Book of Jossipon, compiled and edited by David Flusser,1 was a Jew from southern Italy. It is a medieval work, written in 953 AD in Hebrew, telling the history of the Second Temple. Among the prominent manuscripts of the original version, three stand out. The first is a manuscript hand copied by Rabbeinu Gershom Meor Ha-Golah, a contemporary Italian (from Ancona). Whoever copied from Rabbeinu Gershom’s manuscript attributed the book to Josephus Flavius—Joseph Ben Gurion HaCohen (or Joseph ben Matityahu).2 The same original wording was preserved in all three manuscripts, and the date on which the book was written even appears in one of them. Flusser based his edition on these three manuscripts.3

* The paper is an elaboration on a chapter from a doctoral thesis, written under the guidance of Professor Yehudit Dishon of the Department of Literature of the People of Israel, at the Bar-Ilan University (2000). The English excerpts have been freely translated from the source texts. 1 D. Flusser, ed., The Book of Jossipon ( Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 1979–81), complemented by an introductory volume. 2 The scribe even used the words “Thou art our God’s Temple” in one of his hymns, the same expression as used when describing Antiochus’s illness in The Book of Jossipon: “and died from many illnesses” (Jossipon B, p. 6) (free translation). 3 Jossipon, Introduction, 3–10.

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The tenth-century Book of Jossipon is a work of historiography. In the style of medieval chronicles, it describes in chronological order the events from Creation to the Second Temple era.4 The book starts with the history of peoples and even details the early history of Italy, interlaced with folktales. It presents the history of the People of Israel under the shadow of Babylon, Greece, Persia, and Rome, from which we can see how the author’s contemporaries coped with the problems that arose between Christianity and Judaism. Stories recounting the biblical sagas play a large role in the framework of medieval literary historiography, although they are not confined to medieval times alone.5 Elaborations on the stories of Genesis, complemented by homiletical exegesis, appear in the homiletical book Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer,6 as well as in the book The Wars of Jacob’s Descendants, also called Midrash VaYiss’u.7 Joseph Dan8 enumerates three characteristics of biblical saga telling in medieval times: 1) Emphasis on the story aspect; 2) The revival of the external literature since the Second Temple era; 3) Integration of stories from the external books and from the repositories of books that were rejected by the sages of the late and post–Second Temple era (HaZa”L), and which were preserved in Christian scriptures, as well as the integration of extra-Judaic traditions from the Kor’an and Christian traditions. The Book of Jasher (Sefer Ha-Yashar), also called the Book of the History of Mankind as well as the Long Deuteronomy, belongs to the genre of historiographic literature. It depicts chronologically the chain of historical events from Creation through to the era of Judges. The sagas from Genesis and Exodus take up most of the book, whereas only a few chapters, sometimes only one, are mentioned from Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges. In 4 Like Eleazar ben Asher ha-Levi, The Chronicles of Jerahmeel, ed. M. Gaster (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1971). 5 Each generation told the biblical sagas anew; see the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Hanoch, etc. See also Joseph Dan, The Hebrew Story in the Middle Ages ( Jerusalem: Keter, 1974), n1. 6 Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (Warsaw, 1851). 7 A. Jellinek, ed., “Midrash VaYiss’u,” Beit ha-Midrash ( Jerusalem: Wahrman Books, 1938), Heder Gimmel, 4–9. 8 Dan, The Hebrew Story, 135–8.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

general, the author preserves the chronology of events; however, for purposes of argumentation, he elaborates on or summarizes the biblical saga in accord with his own personal view. He develops the stories of Joseph and the wars of Jacob’s descendants into a romance in the style of the chivalric romances and medieval chronicles. In this book, there are also stories that do not draw on ancient sources, like that of Zepho ben Eliphaz. According to Dan,9 this story is outstanding and demonstrates the author’s creativity, even though the story takes its core elements from Jossipon A, pp. 10–14. The book draws mainly on the Bible, though also on other sources such as the Book of Jossipon, Ma’asse Avraham,10 The History of Moshe Rabbeinu,11 The Wars of Jacob’s Descendants (also called Midrash VaYiss’u), as well as Christian sources such as the tales of King Arthur and other kinds of chivalric literature. The author of the Book of Jasher used a defective Version B based on a defective manuscript of the original version that had been edited heavily. True or imagined difficulties of style simply were pruned from the book. That manuscript on which the Mantua Edition was based is a defective and sloppy version of Version B, from which any mention of Joseph Ben Gurion HaCohen (or Joseph ben Matityahu—Josephus Flavius)’s genealogy was omitted, so that he appears merely as a figure who was active in the wars against Rome. In this rendering, important details were lost, as well as part of its original style. This rendering has been preserved in Vatican Manuscript 408, and in an edition printed around 1448 by Abraham Conat.12 According to Flusser, the manuscript of this version served as a source for the widely disseminated folk book, namely, the Book of Jasher, which almost certainly was authored in Spain. Flusser dates it back to the eleventh century and refers the reader to D. Goldschmidt13 and researchers like Zunz, who have concluded that the Book of Jasher was written probably in the eleventh or twelfth centuries. 9 J. Dan, ed., The Book of Jasher ( Jerusalem: Dorot Publishing, Bialik Institute, 1986), Introduction, 30. 10 A. Jellinek, ed., “Ma’asse Avraham,” Beit ha-Midrash, Heder Alef, 32–4, 118–19; Heder He, 18–19, 40–1. 11 A. Jellinek, ed., “The History of Moshe Rabenu,” Beit ha-Midrash, Heder Alef, 21–2, 12–15; Heder Beit, 1–11; Heder Vav, 21–3, 71–8. 12 See note 3 and also Jossipon, Introduction, 16. 13 Unless indicated otherwise, all referrals to, and mentions of the Book of Jasher in this article refer to the Goldschmidt edition; A. Goldschmidt, ed., The Book of Jasher (Bnei Brak: HaMessora Co., 1922; new edition, 1984).

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M. Bar-Ilan points out14 that the Book of Jasher echoes the Book of Jossipon in a way that is difficult to parallel in any of the generations of Hebrew literature. The author of the Book of Jasher concealed his sources and his means of drawing upon them and processing them—which were myriad. However, Bar-Ilan points out that the Book of Jossipon is indeed the main source for the book’s construction. According to Bar-Ilan, the Book of Jasher’s author owes a great debt to the sources of the Book of Jossipon in all possible aspects: the historiographic content, the Hebrew, the many borrowings of places and names, and the literary processing. Bar-Ilan believes that there is a dialogue between the two books, from which he concludes that the literary phenomenon resembles that of a teacher–pupil relationship. The spiritual climate of both books is similar: both are historiographical; both manifest a culture of storytelling; both probably originate from the same region and succeed one another historically. It appears that the Book of Jasher dates back to the turn of the tenth century to the eleventh century. According to Bar-Ilan, the book was written in geographical proximity to that of the Book of Jossipon (i.e., in southern Italy). Further support is provided by the fact that places are given their Italian names—the author’s concern with Italian geography and history indicates his location. The book15 was printed in Venice in 162516 by Rabbi Yosef Ben Shmuel haKatan from Fès, who also wrote a preface, calling it “the publisher’s preface.” The book has an additional “author’s preface,” which contains two pseudepigraphic tales. One presents the book as a holy scripture discovered in Jerusalem at the time of Titus, which was transferred to Spain. The other tells the story of the Septuagint, pointing out that the Book of Jasher was given to King Ptolemy of Egypt instead of the Bible. In this preface, a “benefits of the book” list is also included, which highlights the importance of reading the book and it different themes. According to the research of Dan and Saranga,17 the book is to be regarded as pseudepigraphic literature, common in medieval times, and its publisher— Rabbi Yosef Ben Shmuel haKatan—was its author. Such also is the Book of Jossipon, attributed to either Joseph Ben Gurion or Josephus Flavius ( Joseph ben Matityahu HaCohen), on which Rabbi Yosef Ben Shmu’el drew. The latter came from a family of scribes, and was well acquainted with the Book of Jossipon. 14 According to Meir Bar-Ilan’s lecture at a 2011 convention in Italy and his article “Of the Solution of the Enigma of the Book of Jashar,” 8, 16, 18 (forthcoming). 15 Jasher, Introduction (no page mentioned). 16 The first known printing was in Venice in 1625. However, it is possible that the Naples printing precedes it (see C. Saranga, The Book of Jasher as a Literary Historiographic Oeuvre, an essay from a doctoral thesis [Bar-Ilan University, 1991], 4–7). 17 Saranga, The Book of Jasher, 67–9.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

In his preface, Rabbi Yosef Ben Shmuel describes his hardships after the printing workshops in Fès were burned down. He traveled to Italy,18 despite the recession there at the time,19 in order to publish his first book, but they were willing to publish only essential books like the Talmud. This is why Rabbi Yosef wrote in his preface that he preferred the Book of Jasher over his own book Joseph’s Robe, claiming that the Book of Jasher was an ancient book. However, the preface is misleading and the book is actually pseudepigraphic.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BOOK OF JOSSIPON ON THE LINKING PASSAGES AND STYLE OF THE BOOK OF JASHER M. Bar-Ilan points to20 the linguistic style of the Book of Jasher as being biblical Hebrew, the like of which is not found in many books other than the Book of Jossipon. Saranga also maintains that this is one element of the Book of Jossipon’s influence on the Book of Jasher. Bar-Ilan refers to Flusser, and claims that the Book of Jasher owes far more to the Book of Jossipon than has hitherto been discerned. There are scores of borrowings from the Book of Jossipon used and processed in the Book of Jasher in one way or another, even apart from the Table of Peoples (pp. 31–3) and the Zepho story, on which we will elaborate further. However, we will first discuss the linking passages used in the Book of Jasher.

1.  Linking through Dynasties21 As in the Bible and even in the Book of Jossipon, the Book of Jasher gives details on family dynasties in order to link between epic chapters. When describing dynasties, the author of the Book of Jasher copies the names of families from 18 According to Baruchson, publishing and printing books was a risky and economically complex operation in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. In the early seventeenth century, the number of book printers diminished because of the economic difficulties involved. There were 120 printers’ shops in the sixteenth century, which decreased to 70 and then to 40 around the turn of that century. S. Baruchson, Books and Readers—The Reading Culture of Italy’s Jews Toward the End of the Renaissance (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Publishing, 1993), 70–1. 19 R. Bonfil points out that a significant proportion of Hebrew books printed worldwide at that time were printed in Italy. Books were brought to Italy to be printed—mainly to Venice and Livorno—from all over the world. Bonfil adds that books were brought even from North Africa to be printed in Italy. R. Bonfil, “The Libraries of Italy’s Jews Between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age,” Pe’amim 52 (1992): 4–6. 20 Bar-Ilan, “Solution of the Enigma,” 3. 21 Saranga, The Book of Jasher, 47.

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the Book of Jossipon and adds connecting text, such as the families’ provenance or their place in time that explains and unites the lists. Some of the dynasties mentioned in these linking passages are biblical dynasties. Others are borrowed from the Book of Jossipon, and the author adds the Semitic dynasties to those belonging to Italian history (Jossipon A, 3; Jasher, 18–19). The author of the Book of Jasher also adds such details as names, population census, families, and domiciles. After this, he makes another list of the names by dynasty, focusing and elaborating on one figure at a time. Thus, for instance, after listing Noah’s sons, he describes Kush son of Ham, in order to finally reach the story of Nimrod: “and Kush son of Ham son of Noah hath taken a wife in those days, in the time of his old age, and she bore a son and Nimrod he named him. …” After telling the stories of Nimrod and the Tower of Babylon, the text returns to presenting the dynasties. Such repetition results not only from the circular structure22 that characterizes that book, whereby paragraphs end with their opening sentences, but also it constitutes a connecting link to the story of the building of the city of Shen’ar by Nimrod. In this manner, the author of the Book of Jasher is able to describe not just figures that interest him but also their environment and times. When the source of the dynasties is the Book of Jossipon, the author adds link words that explain the text. Sometimes he elaborates on the lists of dynasties, and on other occasions he abridges; at other times, he alters the order of the sons in the list: The Book of Jasher

The Book of Jossipon

“And these are the names of Noah’s sons: Japheth Ham and Shem and women were born unto them after the deluge. … These are Japheth’s sons: Gomer and Magog and Mada’i and Javan and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras, sons seven. And these would be Gomer’s sons: Ashkenaz and Riphath, and Togarmah. And Magog’s sons: Eliheraph and Lubav. And Madai’s sons: Ahvon and Zila and Honi and Loti. And Javan’s sons: Elishah and Tharshish Kittim and Dodanim. And Tubal’s sons Arifi and Kasd and Tha’ari, and Madai’s sons: Radon and Zadon and Shivshani. And Tiras: … And their numbers in those days about four hundred and sixty persons … Those are the outcome of Shem … and he begot Haran and Nahor.” (18–19)

“Adam Seth Enosh Keinan Mahalal’el Yared Hanoch Lemech. Noah begot Shem, Ham and Japheth, Japheth’s sons Gomer and Magog and Madai and Yayin and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras and Gomer’s sons Ashkenaz and Riphath, and Togarmah, and Javan’s sons: Elishah and Tharshish Kittim and Dodanim … Gomer’s sons are: Franks who are domiciled on the river Shigna (‫)שיגנא‬. Riphath are Britons who are domiciled in the land of Britannia on the river Lira.” (Volume A, 3)

22 About the circular structure used in the Book of Jasher, see ibid., 40.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

2. The Influence of Style and Themes of the Book of Jossipon on the Book of Jasher The style of the descriptions of dynasties in both books is matter-of-fact and colorless, in the style of a chronicler. By using this style, both authors seek to lower the level of pathos and drama in some of the stories. In contrast, when the author describes Pharaoh, he uses elevated, picturesque language. These descriptions parallel that of Xerxes in the Book of Jossipon. Following are two examples: The Book of Jasher

The Book of Jossipon

“… and the king is seated on the kinghood in royal attire, vested in a golden breastplate and the gilding that is on him is glittering, and the emerald and the ruby and the garnet are flaring up and all the stones of his splendor that are on the king’s head are glowing.” (182)

“… and the king is seated on his throne in royal attire, golden breastplate and glittering gilding that is on him are flaring up emerald and garnet and all the stones of his splendor that are on his garb …” (Chapter 9, p. 90)

The use of the singular (in Hebrew) word “flare up” in both books indicates the linguistic affinity between them, although, from the syntactical point of view, the Book of Jasher differs from its source. In the Book of Jossipon, it is the garb that is flaring up, and, in the Book of Jasher, it is the emerald and garnet that are flaring up. Also, in the Book of Jasher, the “flaring up” does not stand by itself but is accompanied by “glowing.” The author of the Book of Jasher draws some dramatic descriptions from the Book of Jossipon, such as the depiction of Pharaoh’s illness, which is reminiscent of the depiction of Antiochus’s illness in the Book of Jossipon. The Book of Jasher

The Book of Jossipon

“… and the king’s horse fell into the deep and the low … and in its fall the chariot hath overturned upon the king’s face, and the horse sat on the king and the king cried out as his flesh was pained very much and the king’s flesh was torn away off him and his bones broken … for from God was this … and the illness became mighty stronger upon the king and his flesh became reeking like the flesh of the dead thrown upon the field at summertime in the heat of the sun … and they did not embalm him as kings’ custom, for his flesh reeked mighty and they could not approach him to embalm him for the stench, and they buried him precipitously.”

“… and the elephant cried and the horses became irritated and dropped and overturned the vehicle, and Antiochus fell off the vehicle and all his bones broke for he was a heavy and hefty man, and God added infliction to his injury, and made all his flesh reek, and Antiochus’s flesh gave off an odor like that of the flesh of the dead thrown in the field at summertime and his servants carried him on their shoulders some and threw him down and ran off for they could not approach him.”

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The same motifs are present in both books, such as falling off the horse, illness, and stench—the heat of summer making the body reek and chasing away the entourage. Such borrowing from the Book of Jossipon is medically oriented, and Flusser believed that the author of the Book of Jossipon was a medical doctor by profession, which would account for the numerous mentions in his book of matters connected with the realm of medicine. Another example of the affinity between the two books may be seen in the depiction of Jacob’s burial ceremony (Jasher, 221), which is parallel to Herod’s burial ceremony in Jossipon (Chapter 55, pp. 261–2). The Book of Jasher

The Book of Jossipon

“… and the bed was of pure gold and onyx stones and crystal on it in a frame around it, and the bed covering of weavers’ handicraft, gold tied with strands and on them hooks of onyx stones and crystal and Joseph placed upon his father Jacob’s head a large crown of gold, and he put a golden scepter in his hand, and they canopied over the bed as kings’ custom in their lives and all the battalions of Egypt before him in that array, and they marched first all Pharaoh’s brave ones and all Joseph’s brave ones, and over them all dwellers of Egypt. And all fit with sword and armors and donned with war trinkets. And all the moaners and lamenters marching far against the bed walking and moaning and lamenting, and the people following the bed were sorry. And Joseph and his house marching together close to the bed barefoot and wailing, and the rest of Joseph’s servants and his brave ones marching around him, each bejeweled and all fitted with their arms of war. And fifty of Jacob’s servants marching past the bed and spreading myrrh and oholot and all scents along the way and Jacob’s descendants, carriers of the bed, step upon the scents and Jacob’s servants march before them walking and dropping the scents all the way.”

“… and they carried the king’s bed upon which lay the dead king, and the bed was of pure gold and on it gemstones, and the cover of the bed of glimmering gold and crimson was interlaced with gold and the covering of the king around his shoulders tied in front by a gold ring studded with gemstones, and upon his head a golden crown and over it a royal crown and his wand in his right hand: and he is reclining on the bed just as when alive and the squad of battalions before him, the braves of Judea and past them the squad Germania and Gaul who are Franks, all fit with sword and armors as on the day of battle. And the moaners and mourners marching opposite walking and moaning, and the rest of the people marching after him. And the ministers who were marching around his bed each donning their jewels gold and gemstones and fitted with arms: and fifty of his servants spreading all the way myrrh and musk and all pleasant scents and the king’s sons before the bed.”

One of the skills of the author of the Book of Jasher, just like the author of the Book of Jossipon, was his ability to transfer at will depictions from one period to another, not merely by copying but by adding his own personal touch in the same biblical language, and using same concept that events must be “straightened

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

out” and arranged in the correct order, as its name indicates—“the Book of Straightness” (punning on the Hebrew word yashar, which means “straight”). Especially prominent is a story that, prima facie, is not supposed to concern the author of the Book of Jasher, namely, the story of the rape of the Sabine women (see below, note 29), the sources of which are Plutarch and Livy (Titus Livius).23 The story of the rape of the Sabine women is an episode in the history of the founding of Rome in 750 BC. According to the story, the first generation of Romans, led by Romulus, sought to consolidate the city and enlarge its population. Because there was a shortage of women, the Romans approached the neighboring tribes and sought to make pacts with them and receive marrying rights. The Romans invited the tribesmen into their homes “and upon a signal, Roman youngsters charged in from all over in order to snatch the damsels. Most were abducted and grabbed; some were extremely beautiful and were designated for the first senators. …”24 According to Livy, the parents of the abducted girls and their relatives fled from Rome, lamenting the breach of the tradition of hospitality. However, with time and despite their anger, the attitude of the abducted girls changed toward their captors, and switched from anger to appeasement, and, at the height of the war, they even separated physically between their kinfolk and the Romans. [They] rumpled their hair and tore their dresses and, in face of calamity, they overcame their womanly fear, and daringly threw themselves between the flying projectiles, separated between the armies and cast the anger from their hearts, sometimes begging their fathers, sometimes their husbands, lest fathers-in-law and husbands should atrociously shed blood thus defiling their own children, on one side grandchildren and on the other children, thus sparing them from patricide. … Better death than being bereaved mothers of orphan daughters.25

The author of the Book of Jossipon drew this story from Roman mythology and included it in the history of Italy. However, in order not to prolong the book endlessly—for its scope extends through to the Second Temple—he restricted 23 Livy, The History of Rome, trans. Sara Dvorezki ( Jerusalem: Bialik Institute Publishing, 1971), Chapter 1, items 9–13, pp. 26–40; Plutarch, Parallel Lives, published in vol. 1 of the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914 edition). 24 Livy, The History of Rome, 36. 25 Ibid., 40.

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the account to two brief paragraphs, while preserving the central motifs— abduction, revenge, and reconciliation: And as God dispersed Man over the earth and they divided into divisions, the descendants of Tubal became one group and they settled in the valley of Campania on the river Tiberis and built them a city and named it Sabinus after the name of the builders who built it. And the descendants of Kittim built them a city and named it Possomagna (‫)פוצימגנא‬. And the people of Tubal were too proud to mix with the people of Kittim, and said: they will not marry with us. And it was the time of harvest and the people of Tubal went out to their fields, and the young men of Kittim gathered and went to Sabinus and discovered their daughters and mounted Campodoglio Hill with them. And the people of Tubal stopped and came onto them in battle but the mountain was too high for them and all the young men gathered on the mountain. And, a year later, the people of Tubal came on them again in battle, and the sons of Kittim raised the children borne by their daughters onto the wall that they had built and said: have you come to combat your sons and daughters, are we not from now on your own flesh and blood, and they stopped warring. (Jossipon A, 9–10)

According to the account in the Book of Jossipon, the Sabines, who had inhabited Italy for a long time and were not short of women, mocked the Romans who inhabited Rome, which was not yet well established. When the Romans sought to marry the Sabine girls, they encountered the Sabines’ scorn. Nevertheless, the Romans snatched women from the Sabines and the latter wanted to take revenge. However, when the avengers sought to retake the tribe’s girls, the abducted women stood up and separated their kin and the Romans until a settlement was reached and war was prevented. From that time, the Sabine women have become a symbol of family and motherhood in Italy. In Livy’s writings, the account is spread over about six pages. In the Book of Jossipon it is a mere 123 words; in the Book of Jasher it is expanded again to 370 words. The author of the Book of Jasher, who follows the Book of Jossipon in many stories and borrowings, does the same with this story, but dates it to Abram’s ninety-first year, and points out that the abduction and the wars continued until Abram’s ninety-ninth year (i.e., an eight-year period). In his account of the Sabines’ story, the author of the Book of Jasher also uses a circular structure. He starts the account of the snatching with Abram’s ninety-first year and ends it on Abram’s ninety-ninth year. “There was in those days in the year

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

one and ninety in the life of Abram, and the people of Kittim warred against the people of Tubal. Because as God dispersed Man over the face of all the earth the descendants of Kittim became a group.”26 In the next chapter, the plot focuses on the account of the pact between God and Abram, and the latter’s renaming as “Abraham.” The elaboration, which is triple the length of the account in the Book of Jasher, is based on the following: 1) it goes into detail as regards the account of the settlement of Italy during Abram’s life, naming the Sabines “the Tubal people” as in the Book of Jossipon, and mentioning names like Thushkana (Tuscany) and the sea river Pshi’ah (‫;)פשיאה‬ 2) it depicts the beauty and prestige of the girls of Tubal; 3) it eloquently decribes the circumstances of the abduction; 4) it depicts the gathering of the army by the people of Tubal; 5) it goes into details of the dialogue carried out between the people of Kittim and Tubal over the walls, while exhibiting their wives and children who are kin to both camps. What is interesting here is the fact that the story of the abduction in the Book of Jasher comes after the story of Sara tormenting Hagar, Abram’s relinquishment of Hagar, and the latter’s flight into the desert. The author created here two kinds of opposing spousal relationships through which he elevated the level of suspense in the plot. Although the writings of Livy or Plutarch were not available to the author of the Book of Jasher, his dramatic accounting with its elaborate descriptions turned out to be closer to the Roman account by Livy than those of the Book of Jossipon, for instance, the depiction of the beauty of the Sabines and how they bravely faced the Romans. These motifs will serve the author of the Book of Jasher later when telling the story of Dinah. The story of the abduction of the Sabines and the snatching of Dinah indicate the author of the Book of Jasher’s fondness for war and adventure stories in which women are involved. The story of the abduction of the Sabines goes into unusual details in the Book of Jasher, probably because, apart from it being a compelling tale, it has a biblical parallel that the author of the Book of Jasher develops into a romance.27 In the 26 Jasher, 56. 27 See C. Saranga, “The Theme of Dinah’s Rape in The Book of Jasher—A Thematological Research,” in The Book of Jasher, 143–83.

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Book of Jasher, Dinah’s rape becomes a story of abduction.28 Dinah, dwelling in the home of Hamor, son of Shechem, sends her servant girls to her family to warn them of the Shechemites who ostensibly seek to make a pact of marriage, but connive to assimilate them and even fight against them. In both cases, it concerns newly established settlements. Jacob is a newly arrived settler in the Shechem region, where the Romans were establishing a new city. In both stories, the women are presented as courageous. However, contrary to the Sabines, Dinah was not interested in assimilating with the Shechemites and does not defend them. Later on, as in the story of the Sabines, the women of Shechem do mount the walls to defend Shechem, and Shimon ben Yaakov (Dinah’s brother) “takes Buna for a wife.” The author of the Book of Jasher, in his apologetic manner, did not use the term “abduction”—but there is no doubt that there was captivity and abduction involved. Both accounts were given more space by the author of the Book of Jasher; the author of the Book of Jossipon did not elaborate his oeuvre beyond what is mentioned above.

THE DYNASTIC HISTORIES OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AND ITALY IN THE BOOK OF JOSSIPON AND THE BOOK OF JASHER As mentioned, the Book of Jasher, which contains the account of the history of Israel from Creation until the beginning of the era of the Judges, draws on the list of peoples in the two first chapters of the Book of Jossipon’s Version B. These chapters in the Book of Jossipon focus on the ancient era dealt with by the Book of Jasher, and discuss the history of the world and the genealogy of the descendants of Japheth and the early history of Italy. Chapter B of the Book of Jossipon contains a detailed genealogy of the peoples of Italy, named Kittim and Romany, during the Greek and Roman eras, while the Book of Jasher records the history of Greece and Kittim, also people of Italy, and attributes this part of history to the times of Joseph. An example is the story of the people of Tharshish, which appears in both books. In the Book of Jasher, it is written: At that time, the people of Tharshish fell on the people of Ishmael and warred against them, and the people of Tharshish persecuted Ishmael for a long time. The people of Ishmael were few in those days and could not resist the people of Tharshish. They were greatly oppressed, and the elders 28 Rapitio in Latin means both abduction and sexual violation.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher of Ishmael sent a book to the king of Egypt, saying: Pray, send all your servants, commanders and army to help us in our war against the people of Tharshish as we have been depleted for a long time. And Pharaoh sent Joseph and the brave men and the army that were at his command, and the brave men of the royal court, and they went through the land of Havila to the people of Ishmael to help them in their fight against the people of Tharshish. The people of Ishmael battled against the people of Tharshish and Joseph smote the Tharshishians and captured all their land. The people of Ishmael settled there until this day. And when the land of Tharshish was captured, all the Tharshishians fled and came within the borders of the people of Greece, their brethren, and Joseph and all the brave men and the army under his command returned to Egypt.29

In the Book of Jasher, the story concerns a war of ancient times between Ishmael and the people of Tharshish,30 but in the Book of Jossipon (Chapter A, p. 7) it concerns another era in the list of peoples. “Tharshish, they came with Macedonia into one religion and from them Tarsus and, when the Ishmaelites captured the land of Tarsus, its inhabitants fled within the borders of the people of Greece and they are fighting against the Ishmaelites that are in Tarsus.” The geographical framework relates to Tarsus in Asia Minor at the time of the author, and to its inhabitants, who, like their Greek brethren, are Christians. The author of the Book of Jasher related to the “and they battled” in the Book of Jossipon prima facie, and transferred the story to a more ancient era—the time of Joseph.

MERGING THE ITALIAN WARS INTO THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL, AND THE STORY OF ZEPHO BEN ELIPHAZ THE DESCENDANT OF ESAU In the Book of Jossipon, different threads are woven together: the story of ancient times in Italy and its first kings Janus–Saturnus, Picus–Paunus (‫)פיקוס–פאונוס‬, and Latinus. Into this fabric converge also the three Punic wars,31 which took

29 Jasher, 180. 30 Tharshish, the people of Tarsus, were Christians from Asia Minor. See Jossipon B, p. 7, Remark 25. 31 The three wars between Rome and Carthage occurred in the following years: the first in 264–41 BC, the second in 218–201 BC, and the third in 149–46 BC. At the epicenter of the second war is Hannibal of Carthage, who invaded Italy and was eventually beaten back. See I. Shatzman, History of the Roman Republic ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1991), 107–213.

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place in different periods, and the wars of the Vandals (the Vandal hordes),32 which took place between Africa and Italy and got muddled, merging into one prolonged war and the history of one family. Three figures are involved who connect between the threads: Aeneas,33 Hasdrubal,34 and Zepho son of Eliphaz son of Esau. The story of the adventures of Zepho son of Eliphaz is one of the accounts of war and bravery in the Book of Jasher. Its biblical and homiletical elements are restricted, but even in this story, as in the rest of the Hebrew stories of heroism in the Middle Ages, there are mentions of the Bible and homiletics35 alongside classical myths, as well as a significant influence of medieval chivalric tales. The tale of Zepho son of Eliphaz is the most extended and detailed account in the Book of Jasher. This story stands out among the other stories for two reasons: it is an arrantly medieval story that is unfounded; the source of the Zepho story is the Book of Jossipon.36 However, the account there is short and covers less than three pages, whereas in the Book of Jasher it extends over twentytwo pages.37 Bar-Ilan points to38 the affinity between the two books, and emphasizes that, out of all Hebrew literature, only these two works develop the literary character of a non-Jewish figure. Although Dan does not elaborate on the sources of this story in his introduction to the Book of Jasher, he does point out that, contrary to other accounts in the Book of Jasher that draw from the Bible and from homiletics such as Bereshit Rabbah, the Zepho son of Eliphaz account is not founded primarily on these sources nor on medieval sources such as Midrash

32 The Vandals settled in Carthage in 429 AD and, from there, they marauded and pillaged Rome in 455 AD. See J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2011), vol. 2, Chapter 10, Kindle edition. 33 Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s book, escaped from Troy to Italy. A storm carried him to the beaches of Carthage in North Africa (Tunis in Morocco). There, Dido the queen of Carthage welcomes him. Their love story ends with Jupiter’s command that Aeneas return to his country, and Dido’s death from a broken heart. Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. from Latin and introduction, S. Dickman ( Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute and Carmel Publishings, 2005), Introduction, 25–9. 34 Hasdrubal the ruler of Carthage, named Azdrubal King of Africa in the Book of Jasher (namely, Azrubaal, father of Haniba’al–Anibal). 35 See Masechet Sota (the tractate on the woman suspected of adultery), 13, 86; Targum Jonathan on Genesis 49:21; Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, Chapter 39. 36 Jossipon A, Chapter B, pp. 10–13. 37 See the Book of Jasher, Dan edn. (note 10 above), 261–76; the Book of Jasher, Goldschmidt edn. (note 14 above), 232–54. 38 Bar-Ilan, “Solution of the Enigma,” 7.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

VaYiss’u or The History of Moshe Rabbeinu. This writing is mainly “the fruit of the author’s independent creative powers.”39 Despite relying on external sources, Dan points out that the Hebrew romance was one of the main literary trends in the Middle Ages. He calls the Zepho account “Hebrew romance in prose,” and adds that, contrary to many medieval romances, this one is an original Hebrew romance and not a translation or adaptation, like The Adventures of Alexander of Macedon, The Seven Elders of Rome, A Jerusalemite’s Tale, or The Fables of Sandebar.40 The Zepho account has all the elements of a knight’s tale.41 Zepho’s character is anchored within an historic framework, and the events surrounding the character take place in real locations: Rome, Africa, and Egypt. The hero is of elevated status; he is a descendant of Esau and fulfills a national “mission.” His war is part of a supreme destiny connected to the historical hate relationship between Edom– Esau and the house of Jacob. At the same time, in the Zepho account there are also elements of knightly romance: Zepho operates in the area between Africa and Kittim—an area that seemed imaginary in the eyes of the medieval individual. Some of the names sound fictive—for instance, the place names: Cmpania valley, Ashthoresh (‫ )אשתורש‬Region, Puzzima (‫)פוצימה‬, Danhaba (‫ ;)דנהבה‬or peoples’ names, like Kikanos (‫ )קיקנוס‬and Givlosh (‫ )גבלוש‬son of Lokosh (‫)לוקוש‬, brothers of Anibal, namely Haniba’al ruler of Carthage. Zepho operates as an “independent entity.” He is not tied down to his kingdom, but acts as a “roaming” knight. In this epic heroic account, his motives are national yet, at the same time, he acts from personal motives such as seeking adventure and glory, and a desire to prove himself in battle. His world is interwoven with sorcerers and monsters; some serve as good powers and some as evil. Tales of bravery and courage, of love, and of sorcerers and monsters are interwoven within Zepho’s adventures. Zepho’s model of knighthood is satiric. He is “dressed” in knight-like markers but, since he belongs to the house of Esau, he represents a negative figure. He is depicted as a classical knight, a favorite of the gods. He is pious—one who prays to God and is answered.42 He 39 Dan, Book of Jasher, Introduction, 30–2; Z. Malachi, the Tale of Zofar (Lod: Huberman Institute Publishing, 1984), 1–72. 40 About the Hebrew romance, see Dan, The Hebrew Story, 95–121. 41 About chivalric tales of heroism, see Saranga, The Book of Jasher, 180–220. 42 When Zepho, at the head of the Kittim camp of three thousand men, confronts the Africa camp of about eighty thousand men, he prays to God: “Lord, the God of Abraham and Isaac my ancestor” (243). Zepho’s prayer is answered, but the author of the Book of Jasher, in the style of Kings, points out that “but Zepho hath not remembered the Lord … but from evil ones comes evil” (243).

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behaves arrogantly, pursues honor and glory, and confronts death without fear, demonstrating inexhaustible power when he battles a monster. On the other hand, he avoids duels and is not depicted wearing armor. His warring is portrayed in field battles that are described in a few short sentences. Some tales of betraying his king indeed are connected to his name, and he lacks knight-like character traits like loyalty to his master and assisting orphans and widows. The Zepho account enabled the medieval and Renaissance Jew to escape the dim reality of the time, which was full of tensions between Edom (and Christianity) and Israel, and connect to heroic realities of the past, in which the scales favored the common people. Dan explains how the author of the Book of Jossipon created the story and how the author of the Book of Jasher elaborated on it. According to him, in the Middle Ages, the words “Esau” and “Edom” were synonymous with “Rome” and “Christianity.” In the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher, they became expressions of historical establishment. In the Book of Jossipon, Zepho son of Eliphaz son of Esau flees Joseph’s captivity and, after much roaming, becomes king of Rome and the founder of a dynasty that continues in Christianity. The Book of Jossipon does not detail the quarrel over the Cave of the Double Tombs (Me‘arat ha-Machpela), but the account in the Book of Jasher (200–2) gives details, relying on homiletical sources, telling the story of Jacob’s bones being hauled to Canaan, and the confrontation between Esau and his entourage and the people of Israel in connection with the ownership of the Cave of the Double Tombs, Naftali’s dash to Egypt to get the confirmation that the cave belonged to Jacob, and Esau’s death at the hands of Hushim son of Dan.43 Zepho son of Eliphaz is not mentioned in homiletical sources, but the author of the Book of Jossipon ties Zepho to a legend that connects him to the history of Rome, and the author of the Book of Jasher expands the story to turn it into a romance. Just as the Book of Jossipon connects Zepho son of Eliphaz with the history of Rome (i.e., Zepho son of Eliphaz son of Esau = Edom = Kittim), the Book of Jossipon goes even further and asserts that Zepho = Kittim = Rome = Christianity. According to the Book of Jossipon, Zepho escapes to Agneas (‫)אגניאס‬, namely, Aeneas king of Carthage, the hero of Virgil’s book. The latter welcomes him with great honor and makes him chief of his army (Jossipon B, 19–20). As is his custom, Zepho betrays Aeneas and reaches Italy. In a synoptic way, as mentioned above, the three Punic wars are mixed up in this oeuvre with the 43 See Masechet Sota, 13, 86; Targum Jonathan on Genesis 49:21; Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, Chapter 39.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

wars of the Vandals. The Vandal battalions reach Kittim from Africa to ransack and loot, and Zepho is with them. Seemingly, Zepho betrays the African army and defects to Kittim. There he is received in great honor and becomes Italy’s first king. Later on, he will be called Janus–Saturnus (after the god Saturn and after the beast that haunted the cattle. Both figures—the god and the beast— become one, and their symbolic characteristics are attributed to Zepho, who becomes at the same time both god–king and beast. According to the account, which mimics the legend of Heracles and the bull, Zepho kills a beast of prey, the bottom half of which is a man and the top half a goat. He decapitates the beast that devoured the cattle, for which he earns the name Janus and has an annual holiday proclaimed in his honor on January 1 (Jossipon B, pp. 45–50, p. 13). Zepho–Janus goes out to confront the vandals and saves the country, and even conquers Tubal (Tuscany), thus expanding the realm. One of the events mentioned in the Book of Jossipon as one of the deeds of bravery of Agneas and his chief of the army Zepho, is the battle in Sardinia. In the battle against Kittim, Agneas’s nephew Palsh (‫ )פאלש‬is killed, and Agneas buries him by the roadside between Albano and Rome and erects a tower over the grave. Agneas also kills his enemy Turanus king of Benvinito (‫)בנביניטו‬, on whose grave he also erects a high tower. The towers are called Tura (‫ )טורה‬Palace and Loco Turanus, and were erect at the time the book was written, and were called Via Appia after the road that separated them. Contrary to the Book of Jossipon, in which Zepho is placed in Agneas’s camp, in the Book of Jasher he fights from the opposite side of barricades following his defection to Kittim. The Book of Jasher highlights the motif of treachery among the people of Esau—Zepho fighting against Agneas, his brother Lokosh, and nephew (called here) Givlosh (‫)גיבלוש‬. The circumstances of Zepho’s defection to Agneas44 are connected with the house of Joseph. In the Book of Jasher, the circumstances of Zepho’s captivity are elaborated on and connected with the ownership of the Cave of the Double Tomb. Zepho escapes captivity and flees to Agneas, who welcomes him with great honor and makes him chief of his army. At this point, Zepho attempts to convince Agneas to wage war against Joseph and Egypt. The attitude of the Book of Jasher is not anti-Ishmael–Arab

44 In the Book of Jossipon he is named Agneas and in the Book of Jasher—Angeas (transposition of letters); in both books they refer to Virgil’s hero Aeneas. The author of the Book of Jasher knows about Virgil (and his hero) only from the Book of Jossipon.

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but rather anti-Edom. In some instances, Ishmael is even an ally of the people of Israel, since the author of the Book of Jasher is a native of North Africa who lived among Ishmaelites and did not seek to speak against them. The Book of Jossipon does not give a reason for Zepho’s defection to the other side. The reason for this lacuna, as is usual, is given in the Book of Jasher as Angeas’s refusal to make war against the Egyptians and Joseph for fear of the bravery of Jacob’s descendants. However, in the Book of Jasher, Zepho’s incitement is highlighted, and Angeas almost succumbs to it. The author of the Book of Jasher adds an important link dealing with a fifteen-year-old boy named Bil’am son of Be’or. Here again, the author borrowed material and plots from his biblical sources and wove them into the early history of Italy, which, in his mind, is far more ancient than what the author of the Book of Jossipon believes. The boy Bil’am conjures a hoax and envisions a defeat for Angeas. When Zepho sees that Angeas has second thoughts, he defects to Kittim (Italy). The author of the Book of Jasher explains this by saying that Kittim hired Zepho to fight their wars. In its normal manner of seeking to arrange events chronologically, the Book of Jasher brings the account of Zepho’s killing of the beast before the account of his being made king (Jasher, 242), using an expression from the book of Esther: “What should be done to that man who killed the beast?” And the people decide to name one day in the year “the Zepho Day” (unlike in the Book of Jossipon, where it says “the Janus Day”). It should be pointed out that in the Book of Jossipon (Jossipon A, 13n45–50), Zepho’s crowning comes before his fight with the mythical beast. Just as in the Book of Jossipon, the Book of Jasher’s author also elaborates on Zepho’s wars and the way he repeatedly saves Kittim from the African hordes. He expands the account even further, telling of the pact Zepho made with Haddad son of Baddad king of Edom. However, the Edomites—Esau’s descendants—fear Angeas and contend that they have been at peace with him since Joseph’s time. Therefore, Zepho also begins to fear Angeas. And here the author of the Book of Jasher goes into even greater detail, recounting that Kittim wanted Zepho to pray to the god of his ancestors, which Zepho does, and the Lord “makes his hand succeed.” This detail, which is not found in the Book of Jossipon, is part of the “benefits” mentioned in the introduction to the Book of Jasher, which teach readers to adhere to their beliefs. Zepho wins this war for the first time, and Angeas rallies to recruit everybody in Africa from the age of ten. However, Zepho does not remember his pious adherence to God and keeps following his desire, in the name of the house of Esau, to take revenge on the house of Joseph for the case of the Cave of the Double Tomb.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

Esau’s descendants rally to his call and enlist, alongside the Ishmaelites and other locals, for the battle against the Egyptians and Joseph’s descendants in the Patros valley. Zepho faces three hundred thousand Egyptians and only a hundred and fifty of Joseph’s descendants, and again Zepho asks Bil’am to conjure a hoax and predict, but Bil’am fails in his conjuring. The people of Israel cry out to the Lord, defeat Zepho, and chase his army all the way to the land of Kush, despite the Egyptian allies—in their thousands—abandoning the battle and leaving the people of Israel alone on the battlefield. It is interesting to watch the way Zepho was linked to the ordeals of Israel and to their bondage in Egypt. When the battle against Zepho gets too intense for the Egyptians, they flee for their lives with the descendants of Esau and Ishmael hard on their heels. The panic-stricken Egyptians call to Joseph’s people for help, and the latter cry to the Lord, who gives them the upper hand over the enemy. Zepho’s camp is in turmoil. At the same time, the Egyptians hide and flee. The people of Israel take their revenge on those who abandoned them and, after the defeat, they pretend to see people from Kittim or Edomites when they meet their allies, who are scattered all over, and kill them. In the Book of Jasher, it is because Pharaoh realizes the power of Joseph’s people that he decides to enslave them, in the sense of “Come, let us deal wisely with them …”

THE STORY OF JANIA’S MARRIAGE AND ILLNESS There are no love stories in the Book of Jasher45 in the style of the chivalric romances,46 apart from the story of Moses’s marriage to the queen of Kush,47 which is presented in the book as an unconsummated political marriage. The

45 About knightly tales and love see Saranga, The Book of Jasher, 228–30. 46 Knightly romance sprang from the revolt against the rules of the church, which forced couples to keep their love secret until they were wed. In chivalric romances, intimate relations between a man and a woman were condoned as long as their love were sincere, real, and bound by a nonreligious vow of loyalty. In order to reconcile the contradiction between the values of love and religion, love is presented in some romances as Platonic or as ending in marriage. See W. T. H. Jackson, Medieval Literature: A History and a Guide (London: Collier Books, 1996), 13–14, 81–3. 47 According to A. Shinan, Moses’s marriage with the woman from Kush, as accounted in The History of Moshe Rabenu, was a coerced marriage rather than a love story, as presented by Josephus in Kadmoniyot. As a natural sequence thereof comes the story of the queen of Kush’s contentions and Moses’s departure to Midian. This is also the version in the Book of Jasher. See A. Shinan, “From Artephanus to Sefer ha-Yashar: History of the Legend of Moses in Cush,” Eshkolot 2–3 (1978): 64–5.

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author of the Book of Jasher believed in preserving family purity, and continually warns against mixed marriages. At the same time, whenever the author of the Book of Jasher created an independent oeuvre, he did not feel obligated to adhere to biblical stories and ancient homiletics. Thus, in his account of the adventures of Zepho son of Eliphaz, he develops motifs in the romantic chivalric style—as in the tale of Jania’s marriage and illness, the basis of which is in the Book of Jossipon,48 and which is expanded in the Book of Jasher. Two rulers fight over Jania, and her story and the account of her illness connects the Book of Jasher to Zepho’s adventures, even though it takes place after the death of Zepho son of Eliphaz in the Book of Jossipon. In the Book of Jasher, this tale is included in the scope of Zepho’s adventures during his lifetime in order to enrich the text with a tale that fascinated the author. The account is composed of two parts. Part A deals with Jania’s marriage to the king of Africa, and part B deals with Queen Jania’s illness and recovery. What follows is the opening to part A and, immediately after, the opening to part B of the account:

Part A

“There was in those days in the land of Kittim a man in the city of Puzzima whose name was Utzi, and Kittim had a misleading god. And the man died and had no son but one daughter by the name of Jania. The girl was very beautiful, good hearted, good-looking, and smart; none had been seen with her beauty and cleverness in all the land.” (Jasher, 234)

Part B

“At that time, Jania daughter of Utzi became ill … and said Angeas to his wise men: what shall I do for Jania and with what shall I remedy her illness? And the wise men told him: not like the air of our land is the air of Kittim and not like our waters are theirs, therefore Queen Jania became ill from that.”

In the Book of Jossipon, the story is placed in the chapter about Latinus’s wars against Azdrubal; however, in the Book of Jasher it is placed in earlier historic era, namely, Joseph’s times. The author of the Book of Jasher copied the opening of the story from the Book of Jossipon almost literally, but he expanded the account further on, making it more dramatic and intriguing. While introducing more details, the author of the Book of Jasher preserves the biblical language of the account, which is the overall format of his style. Furthermore, the Book of Jasher unifies the account into one continuous unit, whereas, in the Book of Jossipon, the story of Espaziosa (‫—אספציוסה‬in the Book of Jasher, Uspasiona ‫)אושפזיונה‬, is inserted between part A and part B of the account; in the Book of Jasher, this story is pushed forward in time to the era of Moses’s rule in Kush). 48 Jossipon A, Chapter B, pp. 11–12, 15–16.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

Short excerpts of the account about Espaziosa from both books follow: The Book of Jossipon (Flusser edition)

The Book of Jasher (Goldschmidt edition)

“And Agneas king of Africa sought to take her for his wife, and also Thuranus king of Benivinito asked for her. And they told him: we cannot let you have her as Agneas king of Africa is asking for her.” (Chapter B, 11nn20–25)

“And the men of Angeas king of Africa saw her and they came unto him and praised her, and Angeas sent unto the people of Kittim and asked for her, to take her for his wife, and the people of Kittim acceded to his request to give her to him for his wife. And as Angeas’s kings [probably one letter omitted; by context “emissaries” fits here better] were leaving the land of Kittim to be on their way and the emissaries of Thurgus (‫ )תורגוס‬king of Babnito (‫ )בבניטו‬came to Kittim. Because Thurgus king of Babnito too sent his kings [see above] to ask for Jania for himself, to take her for his wife, because all his men had praised her unto him also, wherefore he sent unto her all his servants. And Thurgus’s servants arrived in Kittim and asked for Jania to take her to Thurgus their king for his wife. And said the people of Kittim unto them we cannot give her because Angeas king of Africa asked for her to take her for his wife.” (234)

The style of this dramatic account is similar to the genre of tales49 in the style of courtly romance, but there are no elements of a chivalric and platonic “loyal love” in Jania’s story; instead, it is one that ends in marriage. The story of the battle for Jania’s hand is marginal in the tales about Zepho son of Eliphaz. However, the account does allow the author an opportunity to intersperse a dramatic love story among the accounts of war. Jania is not actively involved in the war stories, but she serves as a trigger for a war in which she takes no side. Her voice, as opposed to the abducted Sabines, is heard only indirectly. At the same time, she enables the “knightly” hero to achieve glory in battle. As in chivalric romances, part A of the account poses at its center the struggle over a woman’s hand and the motif of seclusion on an island of lovers. When Angeas wins Jania’s hand, he brings her to Africa,50 to an “island of lovers,”51 49 About folktales, see E. Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale ( Jerusalem: Bialik Institute Publishing, 1964), 27. 50 In chivalric tales, before consummating their love, the couple has to go through such hardships as abduction and incarceration. The knight goes out to save the object of his love and rides with her to the palace. About knightly romance, see Z. Malachi, ed., The Adventures of the Knight Amadis de Gaula (Hebrew translation by the Physician Jacob di Algaba and first published in Constantinople by Eliezer Shonzino in 1541; Tel Aviv: Papiros, 1981), 36–8; Jackson, Medieval Literature, 82–3. 51 Malachi, Amadis de Gaula, 38.

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which in chivalric romances usually means a remote region. In Jania’s case, it is Africa, which in the imagination of a medieval reader would have seemed like a remote and even mysterious region. According to Geoffroi de Charny’s52 book of knightly instruction, such a struggle encouraged the knight to achievements of glory in battle. According to the account, Angeas king of Africa asks for the hand of the beautiful and clever Jania and, immediately thereafter, Thurgus Babnito’s emissaries arrive in Kittim, also to ask for her hand. The people of Kittim apologize to Thurgus’s emissaries for their refusal to accede to their king’s request, since they feared the king of Africa who preceded him. In order to save themselves, the people of Kittim made sure that Angeas knew about King Babnito’s approach, and even added that that king was contemplating war. The treachery of the people of Kittim is a leading motif in both accounts—the Book of Jasher as well as the Book of Jossipon (see the account of the abduction of the Sabines) in general. This kind of treachery is fitting for Zepho son of Eliphaz, who will later rule as king of Kittim. In the battle, Angeas’s men overcome the people of Kittim, who, in an attempt to prevent a slaughter in their city, come out to the victors to beg for their lives. Indeed, they are saved, but their city becomes liable to the king of Africa’s taxation and looting. Zepho’s action should be seen as a backdrop to this situation. He defects from Africa to Kittim, succeeds in rescuing them from the hands of the king of Africa, and is made king of Kittim. In part B of the account, the romantic element of the work is highlighted, according to which the “knight” saves and protects the object of his love: Jania, wife of Angius (‫)אנגיוס‬, who was brought from Kittim but could not tolerate the water in Africa. According to version B of the Book of Jossipon, Angius constructs an aqueduct to bring her Italian water from Kittim to Africa after discovering that the water in Kittim is lighter than the water in Africa53—Carthage’s aqueduct is 132 kilometers long. As is known in history and, according to contemporary evidence, the aqueduct was damaged in 533 AD by Galimar (‫ )גאלימר‬the last king of the Vandals.54

52 G. de Charny, Book of Chivalry, ed. W. Kaeper and E. Kennedy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 7–30; 86–109. 53 The legend of the weight of water is connected to Jewish settlement in Isfahan. According to Arab sources, Nebuchadnezzar’s exiled Jews wandered from place to place hauling with them water from Jerusalem, the weight of which was lighter than the water in most of their destinations. They agreed to settle only in Isfahan, Iran, because the local water matched the weight of the Jerusalem water. See Jossipon A, 15n77. 54 Flusser contends that the tale about Jania is the legend behind the construction of the big Roman aqueduct of Carthage.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

THE ACCOUNT OF USPASIONA IN THE BOOK OF JASHER AS PART OF ITALIAN HISTORY The tale of Angeas and Jania has a continuation in the Book of Jasher, where, after Moses’s wars against the land of Kush in the year twenty-two of Moses’s reign in Kush, it is recounted that King Angeas died and his son Azdrubal ascends the throne. In parallel, King Janius (‫)יאניוש‬, namely, Zepho king of Kittim, dies and Latianus (‫ )לאטיאנוס‬ascends the throne. Latianus decides to fight Azdrubal son of Angeas, and destroys one of the cities Angeas built for Jania. Azdrubal is killed in this war and the author of the Book of Jasher mentions his beautiful daughter Uspasiona.55 This account continues the family saga. In the Book of Jossipon, Chapter B, it is mentioned that Latinus king of Rome went to “Azdrubal son of Agneas who Jania bore to him” and took Azdrubal’s daughter for his wife in return for Agneas taking Jania of Kittim. Espeziosa (the beautiful) daughter of Azdrubal is mentioned in the Book of Jossipon as “very beautiful, and the people of her generation embroidered her likeness on their garb for her beauty.”56 These words are used also in the Book of Jasher: “King Azdrubal had a very, very beautiful daughter named Uspasiona and all the people of Africa embroidered her likeness on their garb for her beauty and good looks.” The Book of Jasher continues chronologically with a fabricated continuation of the tale: “and all the inhabitants of Africa rose and took Anibal son of Angeas younger brother of Azdrubal and crowned him in place of his brother to be king of all Africa.” Anibal is Haniba’al of Carthage, who seeks to avenge Latinus and “battled against Kittim for eighteen years.” He “took revenge for his brother and returned to Africa.”57 In the Book of Jossipon, it is the Roman war against Haniba’al and their victory over Carthage. The Book of Jasher takes the eighteen years of Rome’s war against Haniba’al from the Book of Jossipon but the author of the Book of Jasher, as is his wont, projects Anibal into an earlier era, contemporary with Moses’s period in Kush. According to the Book of Jossipon, the Roman hero Latinus kills Azdrubal the brother of Haniba’al in Carthage while Haniba’al lays siege to Rome, but Haniba’al does not 55 The names of the characters in the Book of Jossipon were distorted and altered in the Book of Jasher. For this reason, they appear here differently in different places according to their spelling in the original. For instance: Ashdrubal (‫ = )אשדרובל‬Izdrubal (‫ ;)איזדרובל‬Uspasiona = Espeziosa; Angeas = Agneas. 56 Flusser points out the Byzantine custom of embroidering likenesses on royal attire. See Flusser, Jossipon A, 15n68. 57 Jossipon, Chapter 21, 91–5.

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return to the besieged Carthage until after the people of Carthago call to him for help. When he does return to Carthage to fight, he loses the battle and flees to Ptolemaeus of Egypt, who hands him over to the Romans. Zepho’s ethical code of behavior, being a past hero, is presented in contrast to the moral model set by Jacob’s descendants. Zepho symbolizes the instigator and agitator belonging to the “evil” forces, and in the end he receives his due punishment. This polarization of his character emphasizes the contemporary educational role of the account, which contains elements of solace. Even the lonely love story interwoven with the literary fabric of the account of Zepho’s adventures, cannot soften his image, as Zepho is not part of that love story, which should be regarded as part of the histories of Italy and Africa.

THE LITERARY FABRIC OF THE ACCOUNT OF ZEPHO’S ADVENTURES The creative talent of the author of the Book of Jasher, like that of the author of the Book of Jossipon, is to be found in the combination of different genres within the literary fabric of the account: historical dynasties58 are merged into tales of travel, wanderings, and war. Love stories in the style of folktales appear alongside myths and tales of magic and mystery.

1.  Historical Dynasties The chapter about Zepho’s adventures opens, as usual in the Book of Jasher, with a description of the historical dynasties that are woven into the chronology of the entire account: Dynasties

Listing Jacob’s descendants in Egypt and the history of Joseph until his death

Travels and wandering

Accounting Zepho’s escape from Egypt to Africa

Folktale

Jania’s marriage

Dynasties

Mention of the deaths of Zebulun and Simeon

Tales of magic

The incitement of Angeas king of Africa to wage war, and Bil’am’s failure to conjure the outcome of that war

Travels and wandering

Zepho’s escape to Kittim

58 Flusser writes that, according to the custom of many medieval chroniclers, the author of the Book of Jasher starts (p. 18) with the table of peoples based on Genesis 10, and, on p. 214, he briefly mentions also the history of the kings of Italy. See Jossipon A, 3.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher Myth

Zepho’s fight against the monster

Folktale

Jania’s illness and recovery

Account of war

Zepho’s war in Africa and his crowning in Kittim

Dynasties

Mention of the deaths of Reuben, Dan, Issachar, and Asher

Account of war

Haddad son of Baddad’s war against Moab and Midian, and Midian’s war against Moab

Dynasties

Mention of the deaths of Judah, Benjamin, and Naphtali

Account of war

Zepho’s war against the Africans

Dynasties

Mention of Levi’s death and the beginning the persecution of the people by the Egyptians

Dynasties

The death of Pharaoh and the crowning of his son Pharaoh Malul

Account of war

Zepho’s third war against Africa

Travels and wandering

Bil’am’s defection from Africa to Kittim

Account of war

Zepho’s war against Egypt and the Israelites, Egypt’s betrayal of the Israelites, and the Israelites’ revenge

Tale of magic

Bil’am’s failure to conjure the prediction of Zepho’s defeat

Account of war

Zepho’s preparations for war against Egypt and the Israelites

Dynasties

Zepho’s death and the ensuing ascent of his son and his men

Folktale

The account of Uspasiona (which in the Book of Jossipon is combined into the account of Jania and, in the Book of Jasher, is placed in Moses’s time in Kush)

The dynasty listings open and close the story of Zepho son of Eliphaz. The genealogy serves as an opening exposition and as a closure, but it also serves as the basis for the linking passages that place events in time and place in the framework of the history of the peoples of this region. We can divide the dynasties into three categories: those describing the history of the people, those describing the history of the kings of Egypt, and those describing the history of the kings of Italy. The dynasties that describe the history of the people mention the year the people came down to Egypt, the death of one of the sons, the age of the deceased, and his delivery to his sons: “In that year seventy ninth to Israel’s coming down to Egypt, Reuben son of Jacob died in the land of Egypt. One hundred and five years of age was Reuben at his death, and he was put in a casket and given into the hands of his sons.”59 The genealogical descriptions scattered within the fabric of the accounts expand the biblical verse. In the Bible it is written: “Joseph died and so did all his 59 Jasher, 239.

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brothers and that whole generation” (Exodus 1:6). As mentioned above, the Book of Jasher presents the people of Israel after the death of the last of Jacob’s sons, as loyal allies of the Egyptians who came out with them to battle against Zepho son of Eliphaz. However, the Egyptians betray their allies, clandestinely flee, and leave the Israelites alone on the battlefield. After the Israelites conquer Kittim, they take revenge on Egypt for its betrayal—Pharaoh’s advisors advise him to annihilate that people “otherwise, in case of war, they may side with our enemies …”60 According to the Book of Jasher, the Egyptian fear of the Israelites is not because of the Hebrews’ proliferation, but rather because of their power in battle.

2.  The Account of the History of the Kings of Italy The history of Japheth’s descendants that comprises the history of Italy appears in the Book of Jasher when discussing the story of Noah in Genesis, right after the Tower of Babylon saga, using the Book of Jossipon as its source. In the Book of Jossipon, it is mentioned among the histories of other peoples: “Kittim are Romanis who are camping in the valley of Campania on river Tiberis…”61 Whereas in the Book of Jasher it says: And these are the descendants of Japheth by their families … and the descendants of Elishah are Elnehneia (‫ )אלנחניא‬and they also went and built cities, which are the cities situated between the rivers Job (‫ )יוב‬and Shibtamo (‫)שיבתמו‬. And they conquered the land of Italy and settled it until this day. And the descendants of Kittim, they are the Romans who are camping in the valley of Campania on river Tiberis. …62

In the stories about Zepho son of Eliphaz, the author of the Book of Jossipon focuses on the dynasty of the kings of Italy, which starts with Zepho and continues for two hundred and five years. The Book of Jasher, on the other hand, focuses on just one of Italy’s kings, namely Zepho son of Eliphaz—and with him the account of Italy’s history ends. (With the death of Zepho and the succession of his son Janius, and the mention of the length of his reign [fifty years], and the city of his burial [Nabna in Kittim], ends the chapter about the history of Italy.)

60 Jasher, 249. 61 Jossipon A, 7. 62 Jasher, 29.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

The author of the Book of Jasher chooses to keep concentrating on the history of the people of Israel in Egypt, and the Zepho story is used only to reflect the penchant of the author’s contemporaries, which was the eternal hatred between Edom and Israel.63

3.  Accounts of Travel and Wandering Zepho’s adventures in both books take place in three geographical regions: Kittim, Africa, and Egypt, and Zepho traveled between these centers. In the Book of Jasher, he flees from Joseph in Egypt and goes south to Africa. There he is welcomed with great honor and is appointed chief of the army. He is determined to incite the king of Africa to fight the people of Israel and, when he is turned down, he defects to Kittim and hires himself out as mercenary to fight Kittim’s wars. As a consequence of his victories, he amasses power and riches and is made king of Kittim. Zepho’s life is full of vicissitudes until the people of Israel defeat him. At the outset, Zepho is incarcerated by Joseph and, at the end, he is defeated by the people of Israel. At his peak, he reigns over Kittim and earns great glory. One might say that the course of Zepho’s life is rooted in a system of reward and punishment, and his main motive is his relentless quest for revenge.

DIAGRAM OF ZEPHO’S TRAVELS AND WARS IN THE BOOK OF JOSSIPON AND THE BOOK OF JASHER The curve of Zepho’s history in the Book of Jossipon parallels only partly the curve of his history in the Book of Jasher. In the Book of Jossipon he is part of the history of Italy’s kings and, when he becomes king and receives honorable

63 Flusser points out that two stories are interwoven in Zepho’s account: the ancient history of Italy with its first kings, and the story of the wars between Italy and Africa. In the Book of Jossipon, all the wars have been merged into the history of one family, with the figure of Zepho connecting all the stories. Flusser adds that, according to Jewish tradition, the figure of Zepho reflects the hatred between Edom and Israel. As father of Rome’s kings, Zepho is mentioned in the genealogy of Rome by Arab author Hanza El Isphahani, and Flusser contends that this tale reached the Arabs through Christian conduits. See Flusser, Jossipon, 19–20 nn16, 19–44.

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Flees to Angeas king of Danhaba

After Joseph’s death, escapes to king of Carthage

The Book of Jasher

The Book of Jossipon

Made captive by Joseph

Made captive by Joseph

Escapes to Kittim and becomes rich

Escapes to Kittim Made and chief of Angeas’s becomes army and rich incites to fight Jacob’s people

Made chief of Agneas’s army after the war over Jania’s hand

Looks for a lost bull, fights against a monster and wins

Looks for a lost bull, fights against a monster and wins, is named Janus Fights Angeas and victors

Fights the Vandals and Agneas and victors

Reigns over Kittim (in both books)

Again defeats king of Africa

Dies after a 55-year reign and buried in Italy in the city of Genoa

Prays to God and defeats king of Africa the third time Defeats king of Africa the fourth time

Makes a pact with Fights people of Egypt Kedem and Joseph’s men

Is defeated by Joseph’s men

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Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

names—Janus and Saturnus (after the star Saturn)—he disappears from the stage. However, the apologetic objective in the Book of Jasher is different, and the expanded story about him repeats the circular structural system of the Book of Jasher.64 In this book, he again falls into the hands of the house of Joseph after his wars against the Africans, and Joseph’s people empower and aggrandize the status of the house of Joseph. The curve of Zepho’s life in the Book of Jasher strengthens the approach of the author of the Book of Jasher, who, in his list of benefits of the book, emphasizes the book’s objective of strengthening belief in God. Zepho rises from captivity all the way up and falls all the way down again when he fails to remember the God of his father. There is, in this description of the curve, an additional apologetic aspect that shows Joseph’s people as faithful heroes who are betrayed by their allies but who nevertheless succeed in overcoming their bitterest enemies. And, to this is added an element of solace.

4.  The Motif of Hatred as a Leitmotif in the Zepho Account Contrary to the Book of Jossipon, in which the motif of incitement does not appear, the author of the Book of Jasher highlights this aspect. When the king of Africa does not give in to Zepho’s instigation, Zepho ups and joins Kittim. Here the motif of treachery is added to the motifs of hatred and incitement. Zepho and Bil’am betray the king of Africa and the Egyptians betray the people of Israel, and abandon the 150 Israelites to face Zepho and his army alone. But the Israelites defeat Zepho and avenge the Egyptians who betrayed them. According to the Book of Jasher, when the Egyptians saw the people of Israel defeating Zepho they began to fear them. This was the reason that they decided to enslave them, and thus the motif of hatred passes through Edom to Rome and then to Christianity. This account reflects the experiences gone through by the contemporaries of the author of the Book of Jasher. These experiences of the author’s generation emerge throughout the account of the longtime hatred between Edom and Jacob’s descendants that, in his days, was between Christianity and Judaism. Even when the people enjoyed a secure period, there were still those who instigated and sought revenge. However, even within the hatred there was also a motif of solace, which is highlighted through Zepho’s defeat before Jacob’s descendants

64 About the circular structure of the Book of Jasher, see Saranga, The Book of Jasher, 40–5.

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at the beginning of the plot. There are two key terms in the account of Zepho’s adventures, namely “secure” and “instigate”: “And Zepho instigated Angeas king of Africa to gather all his army and to go out to battle against the Egyptians and against Jacob’s descendants and take revenge on them for his brother.”65 “… And he instigated them all the time to battle against Egypt and they did not want to.”66 “And Zepho son of Eliphaz son of Esau chief of the army of Angeas king of Danhaba was going on inciting Angeas.”67 “And Zepho was inciting Angeas day by day to fight …”68

In the Book of Jasher, historical legends are an expression of confrontation with other peoples. According to Yassif,69 Jewish medieval reality, in which Jewish communities lived as a minority, had a major influence on culture, and the historical legends of the Middle Ages reflected this reality with its dangers and rewards. The tales reflect the tensions and anxieties that were behind the creation of these legends. Yassif contends that Divine Providence constitutes the alternative to “real power of government,” which the Jews were lacking, and that adherence to memories of a common past does strengthen the people of Israel. Yassif adds that historical legends like the tales in the Book of Jasher express the human need to suppress anxiety. They present a miraculous ending that affords the reader a feeling of security, even if it be only imaginary. At the same time, for such accounts to help suppress anxiety, they must be believed, so what is better than to create stories about the bravery of ancestors that the reader can believe and in which he can find consolation.

65 Jasher, 233. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid., 236. 68 Ibid. 69 Yassif presents an example of one type of story that represents the confrontation between Jews and Gentiles. The account describes “a miraculous salvation of a Jewish community in trouble,” the beginnings of which may be seen already in the story of Esther. Zepho’s story belongs to this group of stories and is largely a tale of salvation of a Jewish community from an instigator. See Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale ( Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1964), 347.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

In Van Weenen’s70 opinion, the Book of Jasher belongs to the genre of chronicles, and the chronologic presentation of events is there to allow a new understanding of historical events while combining homiletics and genealogical anecdotes.

5.  Myths in the Account of Zepho’s Adventures The story of Zepho fighting the monster is written in the Book of Jossipon. This is a myth known as the tale of Heracles. This myth71 comprises both the Cacus legend and the Janus legend. The holiday, which is also mentioned, is connected to the legend told by Virgil of Heracles killing a mythical beast:72 One day, Zepho lost a bull from his cattle, and he went to seek the bull and he heard a bull’s mooing in the vicinity of the mountain. And Zepho went and beheld and, at the bottom of the mountain there was a cave and a large stone by the entrance to the cave. And he shattered the stone and beheld a large beast devouring the ox, from its middle down the figure of a man and from its middle up a he-goat. And Zepho jumped on it and beheaded it. And the inhabitants of Kittim said what shall we do for the man who killed the beast that devoured our cattle? And they convened to make for him one day a year as a holiday, and they named that day after him … and they named that day the Janus Day. And they named Zepho Janus after the beast he killed.73

In the Book of Jasher, the tale of Zepho and the beast appears in the spirit of the Book of Jossipon, but in a different era: … and one day, Zepho lost a bull and he heard its mooing in the vicinity of that mountain. And Zepho went and saw and beheld at the bottom of that mountain a large cave and a large stone at the entrance to the cave. And Zepho shattered the stone and went into the cave. And he saw and beheld a large beast devouring the ox, from its middle up the figure of a man and

70 R. De Leeuw Van Weenen, Sefer Hayashar Herkomst, Bronnen En Tendensen (Leiden: 1992), 55–61. 71 About the definition of myth, see Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale, 17. 72 P. M. Virgil, The Aeneid, 87th book, pp. 270–96. 73 Jossipon A, 13.

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In both the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher, the account has a biblical dimension. Zepho is going out to look for a bull and finds kingship, and the reader cannot avoid the associations connected with Saul also when Zepho loses his kingship for disobeying God. Furthermore, in both books, the authors use the words from the book of Esther, but in the plural: “What shall we do for the man. …” In addition, after he has proven his might also in battles against the hordes of Africa, he is made king over Kittim (i.e., Italy). We should point out that Zepho is not called Janus in the Book of Jasher but Zepho, because Janus belongs to another era. He is the primeval god of the Romans. and January is named after him. Also to be pointed out is that this god is double-faced, or half Man, which indirectly hints at Zepho’s treacherous nature. The author of the Book of Jasher reversed the figure of the man–beast and depicted it as human at the top and animal at the bottom; he also altered the name of the holiday from Janus’s Day to Zepho’s Day, thus making an analogy between Zepho and the beast and—as was pointed out—Zepho as one of Edom’s dynasty.

CONCLUSION All generations of historiographic literature try to describe and format historical events in a literary framework. It is not an historical document but a document that mirrors a generation. Historiographic literature has two elements: the historical element and the storytelling element. The first element sometimes emanates from polemical historical needs, where a concept is concealed behind the writing-up of historical events. The polemical element, which sometimes is directed outward and at other times inward, is one of the characteristics of medieval Jewish historiography. The other element is connected with the esthetic–artistic side, which expresses traditions of writing accounts together with innovations and the artistic penchants of the writer. In the Book of Jasher, both elements are combined, and this book constitutes a high point in medieval 74 Jasher, 237.

Between the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher

literature. Historiography may assist in the understanding of a given generation, including contemporary ideas. Based on such ideas, each generation may examine its past as a people, evaluate the past, and write it up in order to revive it. Therefore, all historiographies have two facets: one facing the past and one facing the present. Dan75 points out that “it is difficult to distinguish between historiography and storytelling” in the Middle Ages. Writers of the period tried to depict “a true description of reality” and, at the same time, were keen to offer an imaginary literary elaboration and to express their apologetic and religious views and commentary in accordance with their generation. The historical milestones were not their primary concern and it is not always possible to discern in their writings the borderline between an historic oeuvre and a literary one. Both the Book of Jossipon and the Book of Jasher (also called Book of the History of Mankind) belong to the genre of historiography. The Book of Jasher describes chronologically the chain of historical events from Creation through the period of the Judges. It draws on the Bible and other sources such as Ma’asse Avraham, The History of Moshe Rabbeinu, Midrash VaYiss’u, and the Book of Jossipon. Bar-Ilan contends that the Book of Jasher has spiritual and literary kinship with the Book of Jossipon76—the kind of kinship that exists between a person and his rabbi. He views the Book of Jasher as a complement to the Book of Jossipon, and proves that the Book of Jasher tells of periods undealt with by the author of the Book of Jossipon.77 The Book of Jasher draws from its source, the Book of Jossipon, not only the history of the world, including the history of the people of Israel, but also its biblical style alongside the style of medieval chronicles and dramatic depictions, including war tales in the style of knights’ battles and love stories. Both authors are storytellers who shaped their materials to their own desires and changed the times of the accounts. Their interests were varied: geography, astrology, mythology, history. The author of the Book of Jasher used literary freedom to transfer the events of the Book of Jossipon to an earlier period, and he adapted the accounts to his apologetic needs. However, this too he adopted from the Book of Jossipon, where sources are adapted to meet needs. Among the sources of the Book of Jossipon are the writings of Josephus Flavius, the External Books, Ben Sira, and the Books of the Hasmonites, as well as sources like Livy, Plutarch, and Virgil. 75 Dan, The Hebrew Story, 20–9, 133–41. 76 Bar-Ilan, “Solution of the Enigma,” 16, 18. 77 I wish to thank Meir Bar-Ilan for sending me his brilliant article before its completion.

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According to researchers, the author of the Book of Jasher used Version B of the Book of Jossipon. The list of peoples at the top of the book corresponds to that in the Book of Jossipon, the author of which follows the history of peoples since the Creation, including the history of the people of Israel until the Second Temple. In the Book of Jasher, the main stories from the Book of Jossipon are elaborated on, with their times and sometimes their locations altered, and they become accounts that correspond to the author’s concepts and apologetics. There are times when he even expanded them into an extensive romance. The author of the Book of Jasher does indeed owe a great deal to his source, on which he relied for the chronologic records, the education, and the narrative capabilities. In the wake of the Book of Jossipon and other sources mentioned in this paper, he succeeded with much talent, to collect, adapt, and arrange a continuous fabric in a just way (pun: “yashar” is also “just” in Hebrew): a. From materials from the classic world, such as Zepho’s fight with the beast: the tales of the abduction of the Sabines; the tales about Aeneas; the nucleus of the Zepho saga. b. From biblical or homiletical mentions that required filling in of gaps, like historic dynasties and stories of the history of Esau’s and Jacob’s descendants, in which he also found the Book of Jossipon helpful. c. From war and travel tales in the spirit of Hebrew and foreign medieval chivalric romances. d. From love stories in the spirit of chivalric romance, the nuclei of which are in the Book of Jossipon, such as the Jania and the Uspasiona stories. e. From contemporary current affairs, expressed in the hatred toward Edom–Rome.

CHAPTER 7

Italian Jewry and Kabbalistic Rites MOSHE HALLAMISH

B

ilateral relations existed between Italy and Safed during the sixteenth century. Travelers like Rabbi Obadiah Bertinoro, Rabbi Moshe Basola, Rabbi Israel of Perugia, and others who came to Eretz Israel as tourists, sent letters to their congregations or families describing what they had seen, whether for good or for bad. On the one hand, there were economic ties and business connections, especially those pertaining to textiles and silk, through the Lebanese ports and Venice. These cities functioned as centers of international commerce at that time. On the other hand, several Italian rabbis came from Italy to Safed in order to study. One of these was Rabbi Mordecai Dato, a mystic and poet who came to study as a pupil of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero. Dato was also well acquainted with the literary and messianic activities toward the year 1575, which many believed to be the year of redemption.1 Another was Rabbi Israel Sarug, who came to Safed, and considered himself to be an outstanding student of Rabbi Isaac Luria. One day, he left for Italy, where he transmitted his version of the teachings of Isaac Luria, as he understood them, and then continued his wanderings throughout Europe. In this way, the kabbalistic teachings of Safed were disseminated throughout many communities.2 In spite of the fact that rumors spread that the major kabbalists of Safed had put a ban on releasing any kabbalistic writings out of Eretz Israel, this rumor had no foundation. On the contrary, after the year 1603, Rabbi Menahem Azariah of Fano wrote clearly about tractates that arrived from Eretz Israel on a daily basis. In fact, many booklets and kabbalistic tractates found their way to Italy.3

1 See David Tamar, Ashkelot Tamar [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 2002), 187–209. 2 See Moshe Idel, Pe’amim 44 (1990): 5–30. 3 See Yosef Avivi, Sefunot 4, no. 19 (1989): 368n41.

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However, in spite of the activity in the field of kabbalistic literature, it became clear that not all Italian halakhists and leaders accepted the kabbalistic teachings.4 For one example, Rabbi Yehuda Leon Modena had an uncompromising dispute even with his son-in-law, Rabbi Ya’akov ha-Levi.5 Later, too, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a huge outcry ensued following the attempts of a young kabbalistic rabbi, Immanuel Hai Ricchi, to change a local custom and follow the kabbalistic tradition—and not put on tefillin (phylacteries) during Hol-Hamo’ed.6 The leading spiritual protagonist of this controversy was Rabbi Shimshon Morpurgo (c. 1681–1740),7 who demanded that rabbis of different communities cancel the new kabbalistic custom. Their answers were published in full in his Responsa Shemesh Tzedaka (Venice, 1742). The antagonism against the Kabbalah also continued for some years after. An outstanding representative of this trend was the famous Shemuel David Luzzatto (1800– 1865).8 Even then, the controversy did not subside, and Eliyahu Ben-Amozeg (1823–1900), who was a broadminded scholar, spoke out very strongly against both Rabbi Yehuda Leon Modena and Shemuel David Luzzato. In any event, Italian Jewry was greatly influenced by the kabbalistic spirit that developed in Safed in the sixteenth century according to the teachings of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero and Rabbi Isaac Luria.9 Indeed, Cordovero’s theories were speculative and, for this reason, they were limited to the spiritual–intellectual world, which, by nature, was shared by few. The Lurianic version, on the other hand, included the pragmatic world, the kabbalistic way of life, which was strongly bound to the daily rituals. We see a wide diffusion of kabbalistic rites. It is proper to mention the rich contribution in the field of theoretical thought from a kabbalistic view, which included such outstanding rabbis as Menahem Azariah of Fano (1548–1620), Ezra of Fano (sixteenth to seventeenth centuries), Benjamin ha-Kohen (1651–1730), Moshe Zacuto (1620–97), Moshe Hayyim Luzzato (1707–47), Moshe David Valle (1696–1777), and more. We know the kabbalistic philosophy that was expressed by central personalities like Rabbi Yosеf Ergas (1685–1730) and Rabbi Emmanuel Chai Rikki 4 See Meir Benayahu, Daat 5 (1980): 73–115. 5 See Isaiah Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, vol. 1, trans. D. Goldstein (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1987), Introduction, 33–5; Moshe Hallamish, Bar-Ilan 22–3 (1987): 179–204. 6 See Jacob Katz, Halakha ve-Kabbalah ( Jerusalem, 1984), 114–17. 7 See Meir Benayahu, Sinai 84 (1979): 134–65. 8 See Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, 58–9. 9 See also Roni Weinstein, Shavru et Ha-Kelim [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2011), 311.

Italian Jewry and Kabbalistic Rites

1688–1743), who are well known in kabbalistic and Hasidic literature because of their opposed interpretations of Lurianic teachings regarding zimzum (withdrawal), which continued for generations after (also outside Italy). The sages in Italy made great and important contributions also in the pragmatic world. Examples were Rabbi Aaron Berakhiah of Modena (a student of Menahem Azariah of Fano, the primary Italian kabbalist), who wrote Ma’avar Yabbok and Siddur Ashmoret ha-Boker, and Rabbi Moshe Zacuto,10 who is mentioned above. We can also go all the way back to Rabbi Hayyim Yoseph David Azulai (Hida), who spent his last years in Livorno in the eighteenth century and who greatly influenced the Jewish rituals. In this framework, we should also remember the Responsa of Menahem Azariah of Fano, who wished to combine the Kabbalah with the halakhic field.11 From this, we can see clearly that Italy absorbed different kabbalistic customs and developed new formats. It is possible that the special character of the Jewish society (Hevra), described in detail in the book12 of Berakha Rivlin, made for the easier admission of customs. I would like to dedicate a few words to the social aspect, since the Hevra reflected the social and religious events in the Jewish Italian world. It should be remembered that, from the tenth century on, in the Christian world, the Hevra (fraternity, society) was regarded as a religious association that grew especially during the crusades. Unions of merchants and artists established charitable foundations for various purposes. However, within the Jewish world, we know of one such group, called ‫שומרים לבוקר‬, in Saragosa, Spain, in the fourteenth century. The first societies were established alongside artists’ societies, which strove to help each other materially and professionally, and also took care of their friends in times of crisis and spiritual pressure, for example sickness or death. It became known from a relatively later era, mainly from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Spain and southern France. The different ‫( חבורות‬societies) in Safed in later times are known to us. From the late sixteenth century, Italian Jews were greatly inspired by the model in Safed.13 A detailed study of the societies in Italy and their activities shows that, in the 10 See also, J. H. Chajes, Pe’amim 96 (2003): 121–42. Incidentally, the British Library holds a manuscript, No. 27082, and, on page 47a, we read: “I copied out of the Siddur of our teacher, R. Moshe Zacuto … while I was staying in the city of Mantua … 1681.” 11 See Meir Benayahu, Daat 5 (1980): 73–115. 12 Arevim ze la-ze ba-ghetto ha-Italky [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1991). 13 See M. Hallamish, Ha-Kabbalah ba-Halakha, ba-Tefilla u-va-Minhag (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000), 332–55.

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sixteenth century, it was common for a few confraternities to deal especially with charity and burials. They slowly developed in the direction of Orthodox worship within their daily ritual, which was expressed in studying, fasts, and prayers. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there were already hundreds of such “groups,” which were involved in all aspects of Jewish life, social and spiritual. In all of these, the Kabbalah served as an important factor for the creation of additional “charitable societies” and “studying groups,” whose adherents occupied themselves in the secrets of the Kabbalah at various levels, either through simple reading or through more in-depth studies. Naturally, these customs could also be shared by ordinary people, and not just by kabbalists. We find evidence of this in the fact that many kabbalistic prayers penetrated into or were composed in Italy. In general, we see a very strict observance of precepts and kabbalistic rituals. The rituals grew even stronger as a result of the rich local poetic heritage. The aspiration to religious devotion became something of a legacy for people of all classes of life in Italian Jewry. This activity deepened the religious consciousness and established the foundation of a Jewish society that could withstand the antisemitic pressures that were waiting at the walls outside the ghetto. Indeed, the appearance of the societies reflects the reaction to the activities of Italian Jewry. At that time, they were greatly endangered on two levels: the position of the Jews in the political and religious realms was shaken as they entered the ghetto, and also by anti-Jewish legislation in various areas of life. In the spiritual dimension, too, there was a growing tension between Jews and Christians. However, despite the fact that each “society” required a license from the authorities in order to function within the community, they were not discouraged. On the contrary, the guidelines of their social establishment and the role they assigned to themselves within the community framework were vital for the existence and maintenance of Jewish life. Women’s roles were also part of this campaign. Women joined regular “groups,” they paid membership fees, and they were obligated to the duties and rights of their comrades. For example, there was a hevrat mishnayot in the “charitable society” of Ancona, and women were registered among them.14 This and more. The book Eshet Hayil, which was written to “benefit the righteous,” is a prayer book printed by Ya’akov Meldola. The book was written partly in Hebrew and partly in Italian. In another special prayer book for women, called Seder Nashim (Salonica, 1550), the long and interesting introduction was 14 See Arevim (above, note 11), 113.

Italian Jewry and Kabbalistic Rites

written in Hebrew, but the prayer book itself was translated into Ladino. Abraham Farissol served as a ‫ חזן‬in Ferrara, and he copied special Siddurim for the women to use that remained in manuscript form, dedicated to certain affluent personalities. Also known to us are various songs that were composed in honor of women, for example, ‫ מעון השואלים‬by Rabbi Moshe De Riati. In addition, “books of women’s commandments” (‫ )ספר מצוות הנשים‬were produced as useful instruction and counseling books for the female members of the community, particularly pertaining to the special women’s realms of (‫ דיני נידה והדלקת נרות (=חנ"ה‬,‫הפרשת חלה‬. These were written in various languages, like Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, for public dissemination. After this short review, we now return to the contribution of the Kabbalah. For the large part, the seventeenth-century kabbalistic teachings from Safed reached Italian Jewry. Emissaries from Eretz Israel, on the one hand, and kabbalistic writings, on the other, led to the spreading of the kabbalistic rite in Italy, and influenced the religious behavior and prayer rites alongside the groups, especially in rituals that originated in the kabbalistic worldview. Actually, these matters are interrelated. In those days, the center of Jewish life was the synagogue. Some of the synagogues were affiliated to the groups, and their interests were founded in observance of precepts, performance of good deeds, prayers, tikkunim, study, and fasting. Subjects like regular Torah reading or the Zohar, especially on Shabbat, ‫ תיקון שובבי"ם‬,‫ תיקון חצות‬,‫ תיקון ליל שישי‬,‫סדר מעמדות‬ ′‫ תיקון סליחות באשמורת בעתות מיוחדות וכו‬,‫תיקון ערב ראש חודש‬, were very common. In general, religious orthodoxy developed and became a central uniting factor. Perhaps I should briefly explain the construction of the ‫( תיקון‬tikkun). This is a series of reading texts, mainly extracts from the Bible, the Mishnah, and the Zohar, concerning a holiday or specific events. The reading is sometimes followed by an additional physical activity, like eating fruits on Tu-Bishevat according to a specific order, or sitting on the floor and placing ash on the head in the framework of midnight mourning prayers, and so forth. With the influence of kabbalists and the surrounding social trends, which emphasized regret and a desire for forgiveness from God, societies that prayed early in the morning )‫ )אשמורת הבוקר‬were established, and named "‫חדשים לבקרים‬," "‫לבוקר שומרים‬,"15 "‫מעירי שחר‬," etc. In a similar fashion to the day shift, which attended prayers in the synagogue early in the morning, the societies appointed additional shifts for night prayers, tikkun hazot )‫(תיקון חצות‬, 15 See Meir Benayahu, Asufot 11 (1998): 87–99.

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as was customary in Safed,16 which was combined with Torah learning. The comrades of those havurot used to get up at midnight to engage in Torah learning and to pray for the exile of Israel and for the shekhinah )‫(גלות השכינה‬. Attesting to the importance that was attributed to these members was the naming of the ‫ שומרים‬by Rabbi Menahem Azariah of Fano: “And the ‘morning guards’ in Venice are a knighthood community who rise for entreaties )‫ )תחינות‬all year around in synagogue,”17 etc. The expression “knighthood community” may have been used as an indication of the origin of the early risers, as belonging to the elite status, or just as a title exaggerating the merit of the early risers. I imagine that the second interpretation is more satisfactory. The daily liturgy, and that used on certain days that included saying ma’amadot (‫(מעמדות‬,18 was full of kabbalistic motifs. Some havarot added fasts and tribulations. Thus, in Padua, in the societies headed by R. Moshe Hayyim Luzzato (Ramhal), it was customary to study during the weekdays at his home, which was used as a studying place for Torah, Jewish halakhah, and ethics, whereas a small, select circle of students learned Kabbalah on Shabbat. Moshe David Valle, who eulogized the death of Ramhal, emphasized the importance of learning as having no equal. The study of the Zohar would start in a morning rotation, member after member, day and night, nonstop. According to Ramhal, the learning of the Zohar purifies, or polishes, also the souls of those who do not understand the depths of the Kabbalah. Many scholars transmitted this saying as being very reliable doctrine. It is actually possible to find sections from the Zohar in all books of tikkunim that are read, like extracts from the Bible or the Mishnah. Reading or reciting of the Zohar, even without understanding, was a must. Indeed, it should be noted that a combination of sections from the Zohar should be related also to the publishing of the classic book, the leading book of kabbalistic conduct, called Hemdat Yamim (Smirna, 1732). This book serves as the basis of many tikkunim, all of which included reading excerpts collected mainly from the Bible and the Zohar, as well as individual new prayers. In spite of the fact that Hemdat Yamim was accepted in Eastern Europe, sometimes with honor and sometimes disrespectfully and sometimes even excluded (because they assumed that the author was none other than the Sabbatean Nathan of Gaza), it was accepted in Italy (and also in North Africa) as is. 16 See Elliot Horowitz, “Coffee, Coffeehouses, and Nocturnal Rituals,” AJS Review, 14, esp. 30–45. 17 See Responsa of Menahem Azariah of Fano, para. 79 ( Jerusalem, 1963), 142. 18 See Isaiah Vinograd, Ozar ha-Sefer ha-Ivri, vol. 1 (1993): 91; Morris M. Faierstein, “The Brantshpigl (1596) and the Popularization of Kabbalah,” Kabbalah 27 (2012): 179.

Italian Jewry and Kabbalistic Rites

Kabbalistic theories of conduct and the praxis became united, especially in the eighteenth century. This was very much in evidence in tikkunim literature, thanks to the appearance of the book Hemdat Yamim. Indeed, Hemdat Yamim was also printed in Venice and Livorno, which indicates the demand for it in Italy. According to the list of Abraham Ya’ari,19 we have almost 60 percent—144 of 258—of the compositions, which were printed in various Italian cities. In addition, Hayyim Liberman, who edited a bibliographic list of ‫תקוני שבת‬,20 indicated nine items out of forty-five that were printed in Italian presses. However, Yitzhak Yosef Cohen edited an additional list after him, and indicated a further thirteen out of twenty that were printed in Italian towns.21 Moreover, one of the most important books in the field of liturgy and kabbalistic conduct, ‫( משנת חסידים‬Mishnat Hasidim) (Amsterdam, 1727), which also made a great impact in Eastern Europe, was written by the Italian rabbi Emmanuel Chai Rikki (1688–1743). It is impossible to say that all or most printed material in Italy that was related to the Kabbalah was the sole influence on the Italian Jewry. Many of the prayer books were printed in different towns in Italy, according to the Sephardic, or the Eastern or Western Ashkenazi customs. It is obvious that the target audience was not the local one, since only part of the printed material reflects Italian rites. Here we should also indicate that Italy was not a closed system, and that the Roman rite was not merely the tradition of Asti Pissarro and Moncalvo (‫)אפ"ם‬, nor of northern Italy. In any case, a great amount of activity can be seen in the printing of prayer books in cities like Venice, Livorno, Mantua, Pisa, Ferrara, Florence, etc. However, from a kabbalistic point of view, the rich contribution within the tikkunim literature should be indicated alongside the intellectual inspiration. In this framework, we should remember especially the widespread literary influence of Rabbi Moshe Zacuto, which included reflection and conduct. Apart from his kabbalistic activity, he also made his mark in many books and poems (although sometimes based on the rulings of his rabbi, Benjamin ha-Kohen). One of the books of tikkunim that was composed in Italy is ‫ספר חקת הפסח‬, which is a reading order for the first thirteen days of Nissan, printed for the first time in Livorno in 1796. In the yeshiva of Ankona, called ‫צל שדי‬, there was always a learning group early every Friday morning of a specific tikkun that was 19 See Abraham Ya’ari, Kiryat Sefer 38 (1963): 97–112, 247–62, 380–400. 20 Ibid., 401–14; Kiryat Sefer 39 (1964): 109–16. 21 Ibid., 539–48.

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written in Hemdat Yamim and was printed for them, ‫( צמח צדיק‬Zemah Zaddik) (Livorno, 1784). A study group convened on the eve of every first of the month in the fraternity called ‫ ידידי אל‬in Ferrara, to study the suitable tikkun written in Hemdat Yamim, printed for them as ‫( חדוש ירח‬Pisa, 1818). Moreover, in the house of the Mazal Tov family in Modena, on the eve of every seventh day of Passover, they studied the suitable tikkun written in Hemdat Yamim, printed for them as ‫( קול ששון‬Mantua, 1778). In addition, the book called ’‫תהלות ה‬, which is a form of learning not according to Hemdat Yamim but according to the Consilyo brothers from Verona, was composed as ‫ סדר בקשות למוד משנה‬in Modena, and printed in Mantua in 1728. In the introduction, it describes members of ‫ משמרת החדש‬in Modena, in the synagogue named after R. Aaron Berakhiah of Modena. From the year 1718, they took upon themselves the issues of fasting, etc., and then, in the year 1826, “with more strength and boldness they gather together as male friends to set a time for Torah learning.” In addition, handwritten correspondence and books of tikkunim of various congregations remained extant. For example, manuscript No. 3691 of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, written in the year 1801, contains a description of Ashkenazi customs in Mantua. These works are not merely professional or economic in nature. Although it is possible to relate to these compositions superficially, since they were constructed mainly on the Hemdat Yamim model, they can also be considered in a more positive light, since creative products of the independent Italian scholars, usually prayers and mostly songs )‫(פיוטים‬, were added. Siddurim and tikkunim received a new format. Personalities like Aaron Berakhiah of Modena, Ya’akov Daniel Ullamo, Benjamin ha-Kohen, Mordecai Dato, Moshe Zacuto, Daniel Yare, Moshe Hayyim Luzzato, Yehuda Matzliah, Joseph Piameta, Joseph Yedidia Carmi, and more definitely added an extensive and important contribution. The phenomenon of repeated editions of tikkunim undoubtedly indicates a firm and abiding demand, especially in the local market, and certainly beyond the confines of Italy.

CHAPTER 8

Ladino Translations from Italy: The Bible, Pirke Avot, the Passover Haggadah, and the Siddur ORA (RODRIGUE) SCHWARZWALD

INTRODUCTION

T

he number of Judeo-Spanish texts published in Italy exceeded 400 books, which include liturgical texts, dictionaries, songs, poems, Meam Loez, halakhic instructions, scientific texts, and philosophical works.1 However, the number of Ladino translations, which are calque-type translations from Hebrew, was far fewer.2 The first book with Judeo-Spanish was a prayer book published in Naples in 1490; the text was written in Hebrew, and only the instructions for conducting the Passover Seder were written in Judeo-Spanish.3 Many other prayer books were also published with detailed Judeo-Spanish instructions, not necessarily for Passover, from the sixteenth century, but not all of them include Ladino texts. The first Ladino translations were published

1 Dov Cohen, “Kuatroshentos anyos de publikasiones en ladino en Italia,” in Judeo-Spanish (Ladino): Sephardic Culture and Tradition: Present, Past and Future (Livorno: Belforte, 2007), 147–50. 2 See Haim Vidal Sephiha, Le Ladino: Deutéronome (Paris: Centre de Recherches Hispaniques, 1973) for the distinction between Judeo-Spanish and Ladino. 3 Dov Cohen, The Ladino Bookshelf: Research and Mapping [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2011).

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in Italy from the mid-sixteenth century in Ferrara, Venezia (Venice), Livorno (Leghorn), Pisa, and Firenze (Florence).4 These translations include the following types of texts: a) The Bible • The entire Bible, published in Ferrara (1553), in Latin letters without the Hebrew text.5 Translations of parts of the Bible are listed below in Section 5. b) Prayer books • The Ladino Siddur for the entire year (1552), and the Maḥzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (1553), published in Ferrara, in Latin letters without the Hebrew text.6 • A manuscript of a Siddur for women where the Ladino is written in Hebrew square vocalized letters without the Hebrew text.7 • One publication of Orden de los Cinco Tahaniyot (“The Order of the Five Fasts”; Venezia, 1609) in Latin letters in which the entire ritual text is translated into Ladino, including the Haftara for the Ninth of Av (see below), without the Hebrew text.

4 Laura Minervini, “Experiencias culturales de los sefardíes en Italia en el siglo xvi” Foro Hispánico 28 (2005): 21–33; Rafael Arnold, Spracharkaden: Die Sprache der sephardischen Juden in Italien im 16. und 17. Jahrhundret (Schriften der Hochschule für jüdische Studien, Band 7) (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag, Winter 2006). The list below includes only the texts that I have investigated; at this stage of my work, I have not traced all the existing versions of the Ladino translations. 5 Moshe Lazar, ed., The Ladino Bible of Ferrara [1553] (Culver City, CA: Labyrinthos, 1992). Many researches have been written on the Ferrara Bible; see for instance Iacob M. Hassán and Ángel Berenguer Amador, eds., Introducción a la Biblia de Ferrara (Madrid: Comisión Nacional Quinto Centenario, 1994). 6 Moshe Lazar, ed., The Ladino Maḥzōr of Ferrara [1553] (Culver City, CA: Labyrinthos, 1993); Moshe Lazar, ed., Libro de Oracyones: Ferrara Ladino Siddur (Lancaster, CA: Labyrinthos, 1995). 7 Moshe Lazar, ed., Siddur Tefillot: A Woman’s Ladino Prayer Book (Culver City, CA: Labyrinthos, 1995). Lazar thought the Siddur was written in Spain before the Expulsion, but Laura Minervini, “Review of Moshe Lazar’s edition of Siddur Tefillot: A Woman’s Ladino Prayer Book,” Romance Philology 31, no. 3 (1998): 404–19 proved that it must have been written after the Expulsion from Spain. Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, “Lexical Variations in Two Ladino Prayer Books for Women,” in Lexicología y lexicografía judeoespañolas, ed. Winfried Busse and Michael Studemund-Halévy. (Bern: Peter Lang, 2011), 53–86, further showed that it must have been produced in Italy, probably in Venice; see Section 5 below.

Ladino Translations from Italy

c) The Passover Haggadot • The Passover Haggadot were published from 1609 in Livorno (34), Venice (14), and Pisa (3),8 all in Hebrew square vocalized letters next to the Hebrew text. • In addition, there is only one Haggadah from Livorno (1654 [5414]) translated into Latin letters without the Hebrew text.9 d) Pirke Avot • Pirke Avot (“Ethics of the Fathers”) a tractate of the Mishnah was published since 1601 in Livorno (11), Venice (7), Florence (1), and Pisa (2), in Hebrew square vocalized Hebrew letters.10 • Three versions were published in Latin letters: two in Venice and one in Florence. They all are written next to the Hebrew text. e) Parts of the Bible • The translation of Ruth in Maḥzor Leshalosh Regalim in Venice from 1756 (and perhaps even earlier), and in Ketuba Leḥag Shavuot (1753) in either Rashi or square vocalized Hebrew script. • Two full translations of the book of Job were published in Livorno (1778), one in Hebrew script and the other in Latin script, each Ladino verse following the Hebrew verse. • The Ladino translation of the Aramaic interpretation of the Song of Songs (Shir Hashirim) was published in many renditions in Venice (from 1672). Only one version from Venice (1805) also includes the Ladino translation of the Hebrew verses. 8 Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, A Dictionary of the Ladino Passover Haggadot (Eda Velashon, 27) [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 2008). Isaac Yudlov, The Haggadah Thesaurus: Bibliography of Passover Haggadot From the Beginning of Hebrew Printing until 1960 ( Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1997). Of the 151 Haggadot with Ladino translations in Hebrew letters, 51 (34 percent) were published in Italy. 9 I am grateful to Dov Cohen who helped me trace some of the sources that were not listed in many of the catalogs (Abraham Yaari, Catalogue of Judeo-Spanish Books [in Hebrew] [ Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1934]; Max Grünbaum, Jüdisch-Spanisch Chrestomathie [Frankfurt-am-Main: Kauffman, 1896]; Yudlov, The Haggadah Thesaurus; Meier Kayserling, Biblioteca española-portugueza Judaica: Dictionnaire bibliographique [Strassburg: Charles J. Trubner, 1890; New York, 1971]). See also Shmuel Refael, “Trends and Goals in Catalogues and Bibliographies of Ladino Printed Books” [in Hebrew], Pe’amim 81 (1999): 120–54, which offers a review of the sources, and Cohen, The Ladino Bookshelf. 10 Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, The Ladino Translations of Pirke Aboth (Eda VeLashon, 13) [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989), 20–37. The list is based on the Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470–1960. My study covered eight from Livorno, five from Venice, one from Florence, and one from Pisa.

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• The Haftara of the eighth day of Passover and the Haftarot of Shavuot in square vocalized Hebrew letters were published in Florence in 1749. The Haftara of Habakkuk for the second day of Shavuot (Pentecost) reflects the Aramaic interpretation instead of the Hebrew one. • The Haftara for the Ninth of Av (from 1614), published in Seder [ʾArba/ Ḥamesh] Taʿaniyot (“Order of the [Four/ Five] Fasts”) in Venice, Pisa, and Livorno in Hebrew letters (to be described below in Section 5). The Haftara is also included in Latin letters in Orden de los Cinco Tahaniyot (Venice, 1609) mentioned above. f) Poetry • Some of the Pisa and Venice editions of the Seder ʾArba Taʿaniyot (“The Order of the Four Fasts”) also include translations of “Bore ʿad ʾana yonatka bimṣuda …” (“Creator, until when, your dove is in a trap …”), a short poem for the Ninth of Av. • In the abovementioned Ketuba Leḥag Shavuot (Venice, 1753), the Azharot (warnings) for the two days of Shavuot written by Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gabirol are also translated into Ladino.11 The Ferrara Siddur (1552) includes also the Passover Haggadah, Pirke Avot, the book of Esther (Megillat Ester), the Song of Songs, the book of Ruth, the Haftara of the Ninth of Av, the poetry mentioned above, and more. The Ferrara Siddur and Maḥzor, and the Siddur for women, include many chapters of Psalms that are part of the daily prayers. The Orden de los Cinco Tahaniyot includes the translation of parts of Job and the Haftarot. This survey shows that the majority of the Ladino translations were published in Hebrew square vocalized script next to the Hebrew texts; the minority of the texts were published in Latin script. The Ferrara translations, Orden de los Cinco Tahaniyot, and the Haggadah from Livorno were published entirely in Latin script without the Hebrew text. A few other translations of Pirke Avot from Florence and Venice and the book of Job were published in Latin script next to the Hebrew text. The Latin-script texts from Italy were intended for the converso (converted, anusim) and the ex-converso communities, whereas the Hebrew-script translations were designated for the expelled Sephardic Jewish communities 11 The translation is identical to the Constantinople and Thessalonica traditions; see discussion below in Section 4.

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and some of the ex-converso communities who had returned to Judaism.12 It is well known that the ex-converso communities used Portuguese as their primary language of communication, though Spanish was retained for the translation of liturgical texts. Traces of this diglossic language situation can be found in the title pages of some of the texts, for example: Pirke Avot ʿim piṭrono bilšon Sefarad … os kues se dizen en los Šabatot ke ay entre Pesaḥ a Šavuot un por kada Šabat con a deklaraçion en lengua española (Pirke Avot with its interpretation in the language of Spain … that are used to say on the Sabbaths between Passover and Pentecost with the clarification in the Spanish language; Venezia, 1739.)13

The use of os kues (cues) rather than los quales and the use of a rather than la shows the Portuguese influence on the Spanish language of the author. In this paper, the following issues will be discussed from a linguistic point of view: 1) The Ladino translations are grammatically and lexically unique; 2) There are basic differences between the translations published in Latin letters and Hebrew letters; 3) The time of publication and the type of texts distinguish the translations in Hebrew letters from each other; 4) Printing houses in Italy served as publishers for the Ottoman Empire versions; 5) Some of the Ladino translations are exceptional; 6) Conclusion: Should any liturgical text be called Ladino?

1.  The Ladino Translations Are Grammatically and Lexically Unique The Ladino translations are known for their rigid calque translations of the Hebrew texts when compared to ordinary Spanish translations of the same texts, or to free usage of Spanish or Judeo-Spanish. Here are two examples that demonstrate their unique features.14 The first example appears both in the

12 Minervini, “Experiencias culturales.” 13 Schwarzwald, The Ladino Translations, 27. 14 For more details, see Israel Revah, “Hispanisme et judaïsme des langues parlées et ecrites par les Sefardim,” in Actas del primer Simposio de Estudios Sefardíes, ed. Iacob M. Hassán (Madrid: Instituto Arias Montano, 1970), 236–7; Sephiha, Le Ladino, 42–116; Schwarzwald, The Ladino Translations, 7–15 among others.

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Ferrara Bible, in the Siddur, and in the Haggadot, and the second example appears in the Ferrara Bible, in the Siddur, and in Pirke Avot:15 Example 1 Heb.: wayyōmərū ʾɛl-parʿō lāḡūr bāʾārɛṣ bānū kī-ʾēn mirʿɛ laṣṣōn ʾăšɛr laʿăbādɛkā kī-ḵābēd hārāʿāb bəʾɛrɛṣ kənāʿan wəʿattā yēšəbū-nā ʿăbāḏɛkā bəʾɛrɛṣ gōšɛn (And they said to Pharaoh: We have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks because the famine is severe in the land of Canaan; and now, please, let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen [Genesis 47: 4]) F: Y dixeron a Parho: por morar en la tierra venimos, que no pasto a las ouejas que a tus sieruos, que graue la hambre en tierra de Kenahan; y agora, esten agora tus sieruos en tierra de Gossen. FS: Y dixeron a Parhoh: para peregrinar en la tierra venimos que no pasto a las ouejas que a tus sieruos por que graue la fambre en tierra de Kenahan y agora esten agora tus sieruos en tierra de Gossen. H1: Y dišeron a Par‘o por pelegrinar enla tierra venimos que non pasto alas obeǰas que a tus çierbos que pezgada la fambre en tierra de Kena‘an y agora esten agora tus çierbos en tierra de Gošen. H2: Y dišeron a Par‘o por pelegrinar en la tierra venimos que no pasto alas obeǰas que a tus sierbos que pezgada la fambre en tierra de Kena‘an y agora esten agora tus sierbos en tierra de Gošen. Example 2 Heb.:  wəʿammēk kullām Ṣaddīqīm ləʿōlām yīršū ʾārɛṣ nēṣɛr maṭṭāʿay maʿăśē yāday ləhitpāʾēr (And all your people are righteous; they will inherit the land forever, they are my plants, the work of my hands, wherein I glory [Isaiah 60: 21]) F: Y tu pueblo todos ellos justos para siempre heredaran tierra, ramo de mis plantas, fecha de mis manos, para glorificarme.

15 F = Ferrara Bible (1553), in Latin script (Lazar, The Ladino Bible, 60, 352); FS = Ferrara Siddur (1552), in Latin script (Lazar, The Ladino Maḥzōr, 166, 187); H1 = Venezia Haggadah (1609), in Hebrew vocalized script; H2 = Livorno Haggadah (1794), in Hebrew vocalized script (part of Maggid); PA1 = Venezia Pirke Avot (1601), in Hebrew vocalized script; PA2 = Firenze Pirke Avot (1749), in Hebrew vocalized script (the first verse of the tractate).

Ladino Translations from Italy FS: Y tu pueblo, todos ellos justos, para siempre heredaran tierra; ramo de mis plantas, hecha de mis manos, para afermosiguar. PA1: y tu pueblo todos ellos ǰustos para sienpre eredaran tierra, rama de mis plantas, obra de mis manos para seer aformoziguado. PA2: y tu pueblo todos ellos ǰustos para siempre eredaran tierra, rama de mis plantas, obra de mis manos por seer afermoziguado.

The most prominent features of the translations are: a) The Hebrew syntax is copied in the translation: • The word order follows the rules of the Hebrew grammar, e.g., por morar/peregrinar/pelegrinar venimos 1), y agora esten agora 1a) Heb. wəʿattā yēšəḇū-nā); todos ellos 2b) Heb. kullām) • The copula is missing, e.g., que no pasto a las ovejas 1a): instead of que no ay pasto), que grave/pezgada la hanbre/fambre 1a): que grave/pesgada es/está la hambre/fambre), todos ellos justos 2a): todos ellos son justos). • The frequent use of y (“and”) follows the Hebrew usage; it is unnecessary in Spanish. • The choice of prepositions imitates the Hebrew prepositions. Whenever the accusative marker ʾet appears in Hebrew it is translated by a, even in those cases in which it is unnecessary in Spanish, e.g., En principio crio el Dio a los çielos y a la tierra (Genesis 1:1; Spanish … crio Dios el cielo y la tierra). b) The Hebrew present tense forms are translated by apocopated participial forms in the singular, e.g., Heb. hōlēk “go,” Ladino andán (not andava or iva), Heb. yōšēb “sit,” Ladino están (not estava, estando, or está), Heb. ʾōmēr “say,” Ladino dizien (not dize), Heb. bā “come,” Ladino vinien (not viene, entra). c) Archaic and special Judeo-Spanish vocabulary is used in the translation, e.g., feuzia (“faith”) rather than confianza; barragan (“brave”) rather than Spanish esforzado. d) Archaic forms are retained in the translation, e.g., verne (“I will come”), rather than vendre; terna (“he will have”), rather than tendra. e) God (Heb. ʾel, ʾelohim) is referred to by El Dio (rather than Spanish Dios), YHWH is copied by A. (abbreviation of Adonay) in the Latin script versions, and by YY or H’ in the Hebrew script ones. f) Proper names are copied in their Hebrew pronunciation, e.g., Parho(h) (not Faraon), Kenahan/Kena‘an (not Canaan), Moše(h) (not Moysen or Muysen).

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g) The use of Hebrew words in the Ladino translations is rare; it is quite frequent in Judeo-Spanish texts. In spite of the variety of texts, in different scripts, published at different times and in different locations, the phenomena are the same. All the translations adhere to the same linguistic features with minor variations.

2. There Are Basic Differences between the Translations Published in Latin Letters and Hebrew Letters As demonstrated in various studies, the Italian versions are more similar to the Spanish normative standards than to the Ottoman Empire translations of the liturgical texts.16 Nevertheless, the Hebrew-script Ladino translations adhere more to the Judeo-Spanish tradition than the Latin script. One essential feature that distinguishes the Latin-script translations from the Hebrew-script translations is the use of Hebrew words. The use of Hebrew words in the Latin-script translations is rare, and is used in two main cases: a) in religious or cultural Jewish terms, such as Tefila, Šabat, Rebi, Šemaʿ (prayer, Sabbath, Rabbi, Shema); b) in unclear terms or in cases where the explanation might be too long, e.g., Urim veThumim (“Urim and Thumim [in the breast of the High Priest]”), ʿomer (“sheaf of corn,” ancient dry measure). In other cases, the Latin script version replaces the Hebrew ones. Instead of pasuq (“verse”) in the early Hebrew script translations, the word verso is used; instead of ʾafilu (“even”), aun que or solamente is used. The use of Hebrew words in the Ladino translation is straightforward in the Hebrew-script versions. In order to adjust the Hebrew words to the Latin letters one needs to transcribe the terms, and this is not always easy. Therefore, the editors of the translation preferred to translate them. There are also different usages of some expressions, such as the Hebrew phrase še-neʾemar (“as is said” [in the Bible]) is translated in the Latin script versions as como es dicho, whereas the Hebrew script versions use como dize el pasuq/verso (in Venice) or que ansi dize el pasuq/verso (in other locations). The expression qeriʾat šemaʿ (“reciting the Shema”) is translated leedura/lectura de Sema(c)h in the Latin script Pirke Avot, leer la Semah in the Haggadah, and meldadura de (la) Šemaʿ in the all Hebrew-script versions. 16 Schwarzwald, The Ladino Translations, 74–96; Schwarzwald, A Dictionary of Ladino, 17–38; Sephiha, Le Ladino.

Ladino Translations from Italy

In addition, there are some lexical differences in the translations, for instance, Heb. seʿuda (“meal”) is translated by conjute, conbido, comida in the Latin-script versions and yantar, pasto, or konbite in the Hebrew-script ones; veḥilufehen (“and their opposites”) is translated by y el contrario/ y su contrario in Latin script, y el reves de ellas/ y arreves de el in Hebrew script; gole (“exiled”) is translated by captivo/captivan in Latin script, kautivan/kavtivan/kativante in Hebrew script.

3. The Time of Publication and the Type of Texts Distinguish the Translations in Hebrew Letters from Each Other In spite of the differences in script and in some words, the Ferrara Bible (1553) closely resembles the Constantinople Pentateuch (1547) and other biblical translations from Constantinople and Thessalonica.17 The early translation of Pirke Avot from Venice (1601) and the Italian Hebrew-script Haggadot also bear a resemblance to the Ottoman Empire Ladino translations. These early translations use Hebrew words more often than the late translations of Pirke Avot, and they show conventional Judeo-Spanish orthography, unlike the Pisa and Livorno translations of Pirke Avot. The earliest version of Pirke Avot in Hebrew script (Venice, 1601) uses the Hebrew words pasuq (“verse”), talmidim (“pupils”), gehinam (“hell”), ʿiqar (“principle”), miṣva/miṣvot (“commandmant/s”), dar zekut (“give merit”), and ʿam haʾareṣ (“uneducated person”) instead of verso, descipulos, infierno, principal, enkomendansa/s, azer mereser, and ignorante~inyorante, respectively, in later Italian versions. The similar use of Hebrew words in the translation is evident in the Italian Haggadot.18 17 Moshe Lazar, ed., Ladino Pentateuch: Constantinople 1547 (Culver City, CA: Labyrinthos, 1988); Moshe Lazar, ed., The Ladino Scriptures: Constantinople—Salonica [1540–1572], I–II (Lancaster, CA: Labyrinthos, 2000). Sephiha, Le Ladino showed this resemblance in Deuteronomy. Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, “On the Jewish Nature of Medieval Spanish Biblical Translations: Linguistic Differences between Medieval and Post-exilic Spanish Translations” Sefarad 70 (2010): 117–40 showed their resemblance in comparison to the medieval Spanish Bibles. 18 Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, “La Haggada de Venise en ladino de 1609,” Yod 33–4 (1991): 51–69; Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, “The Difference between Ladino Translations of Pirke Aboth and the Haggadot” [in Hebrew], in History and Creativity in the Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Communities, ed. Tamar Alexander, Avnraham Haim, Galit Hasan-Rokem, and Efraim Hazan ( Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayim, 1994), 33–54; Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, “Hierarchy among the Hebrew Elements in Ladino Translations as Determined by Geographical, Textual and Religious Factors,” in Vena Habraica in Judaeorum Linguis, ed.

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The use of Hebrew words in the translations was apparently common in the early Italian Ladino translations. However, with the influence of the more standardized Spanish used by the ex-converso communities, this use of Hebrew ceased to exist, as specifically indicated in the Venice 1696 introduction to Pirke Avot: Siendo sierto ke la dotrina de estas sentensias es de gran provecho komo dize la Gemara kien kiere seer bueno afirme las palabras de Avot y par’ ke se entienda bien se traduzio en Ladino y agora mude algunos ladinos mas ordinarios y muchas palabras ke estan en LŠ”H [Lešon Haqodeš] las puze en Ladino. (Because the principle of these sayings is of great profit, as the Gemara says: whoever wants to be pious should fulfill the words of Avot,19 and in order to clarify the matter well it [Pirke Avot] was translated into Ladino. And now I changed some of the Ladino words into more common forms, and many words that are in Hebrew I translated into Ladino.)

From this citation, we see that there were Ladino versions that included Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish words in the translation (e.g., Venice, 1601), and, in trying to make the entire text look more like Spanish, the author replaced Hebrew words with Spanish ones. Regarding orthography, the use of Ḥet rather than Shin or Gimel with a diacritic appears in the translations of Pirke Avot from Pisa and Livorno, as well as in the translation of the Haftara of Habakkuk from Florence (1749). In these versions, words like dišo, hiğo~ʾiğo, ğustos, muğer (“said,” “son,” “righteous,” “woman”; Modern Spanish dijo, hijo, justos, mujer) were spelled as diḥo, ʾiḥo, ḥustos, muḥer. Shin and Gimel with a diacritic mark indicate the pronunciation of [š] or [ž] in these words, whereas Ḥet represents the sound [x]. Judeo-Spanish preserved the pronunciation of the medieval Spanish letter (pronounced š) and j or g (in front of front vowels) (pronounced ž or dž), while they changed their pronunciation into [x] (like Kaf Rafa) in Modern Spanish. The orthography represented by Ḥet further indicates the influence of Modern Spanish on the translations. These Ladino versions continued to use the Ladino features of the translations as indicated above, but the use of their pronunciation customs is reflected in the spelling. Nevertheless, this phenomenon did not occur in the more familial traditional translations of the Haggadot Shlomo Morag, Moshe Bar-Asher, and Maria Mayer-Modena (Milano: Universitá degli Studi di Milano, 1999), 183–202. 19 Based on Talmud Bavli, Bava Kama 30a.

Ladino Translations from Italy

and the other texts that had a long Sephardic tradition. The Haggadot from Pisa and Livorno as well as the other traditional texts retained the Judeo-Spanish conventional spelling and did not modernize it. Retaining the old tradition kept the Sephardic communities close together. This change could have occurred only in the more learned Pirke Avot and in the rare translation of the Aramaic version of the Habakkuk Haftara. It is possible to argue that the target readership of these translations was the Hakitia (North African Judeo-Spanish) speakers who adopted Modern Spanish pronunciation; however, the fact remains that the spelling was altered only in these translations, and not in the Ladino Haggadot or the other texts.20

4. Printing Houses in Italy Served as Mere Publishers for the Ottoman Empire Version Many of the Ladino translations of the Italian texts mentioned in items e) and f) in the Introduction above show consistent similarity with the translations published in the Ottoman Empire. On the front page of these Maḥzorim and Seder Taʿaniyot, it is stated that each of them is: “keminhag Q”Q [Qehilot Qodesh, holy communities] Sefaradin YṢ”V [Yišmerem Ṣuram Vegoʼalam, May God keep and redeem them]” (as is the custom of the holy Sephardic communities). The printers and typesetters were members of the Pua family, mentioned in some of the title pages, who lived in Constantinople (e.g., ben Mordekhay Pua hayošeb baʿir Kostantina [the son of Mordechay who resides in the city Constantinople], e.g., Venice, 1797). Moreover, on the title page of Maḥzor Venezia 565 (1805) it is claimed: Maḥzor lešaloš regalim keminhag Q”Q Sefaradim šebeKonstantina umdinot hamizraḥ … vehadinim belašon Sefaradi kanahug. (Prayer book for the three main festivals as the custom of the holy Sephardic communities in Constantinople and the eastern countries … and the laws are given in the Sephardic language, as is the custom.)

Similar wording is used in other types of maḥzorim published in Vienna or in Thessalonica at around the same time. Moreover, the fact that Rashi script is used in some of these Italian Ladino translations rather than square vocalized

20 Dov Cohen comments that in Meam Loez printed in Livorno for the North African communities, the letter Khaf (not Ḥet) is used to represent ğ or š of the eastern communities, as customary in the Hakitia orthography.

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letters can also prove that this is not a special Italian tradition, but a common Ladino translation used both in the East (Ottoman Empire) and in the West (Italy). The Italian printing houses served as a publication medium for many communities (e.g., Yiddish- or Judeo-Arabic-speaking Jews), and they did not necessarily represent an Italian tradition, unlike the translations of the Ferrara Bible and prayer books, the Haggadot and Pirke Avot.21

5.  The Exceptionality of Some Ladino Translations In this section, I refer to two kinds of texts: a) the Siddur for women (mentioned in item c) in the Introduction);22 b) the Ladino of the special texts— items e) and f) in the Introduction. a) The Siddur for women is exceptional because it is a manuscript rather than a printed book. Minervini proved that the Siddur could not have been written in medieval Spain as Lazar had presumed, because many of its unique linguistic features are typical of the Judeo-Spanish Diaspora after the Expulsion from Spain.23 In my investigation of the Siddur, I further demonstrated that since there are so many features that reflect Portuguese, Italian, and Judeo-Spanish components, the Siddur could have been written only in Italy where these three languages were common in the Jewish communities. Furthermore, the use of como dize el pasuq (“as the verse says”), which is typical of the Venetian Ladino translations, together with other linguistic features,24 supports the claim that the Siddur was written in Venice.25 This is the only Italian Ladino text that is translated from beginning to end in Hebrew letters, without the original Hebrew text, and with few instructions in 21 In the course of this investigation I found two maḥzorim for Yom Kippur from Livorno (1876, 1908) that had similar front pages to the ones mentioned above, with no Ladino texts, where they used the word muncho (much, very), rather than mucho, in the Judeo-Spanish instructions. Other original Italian versions used only mucho throughout the Judeo-Spanish instructions and the Ladino translations. This is another sign of their dependence on the Ottoman Empire tradition (Cohen, “Kuatroshentos anyos”, 152–3; Cohen, The Ladino Bookshelf, 143). Cohen also observed that the Italian printing houses used the same letter sets and plates as the Ottoman Empire (Cohen, The Ladino Bookshelf, 103–5). 22 Lazar, Siddur Tefillot. 23 Minervini, “Review of Moshe Lazar’s.” 24 For instance, chamar (“to call”) instead of llamar or yamar reflects the Venitian use of this verb, supported by findings from a Ladino Venetian Haggada from 1716 (Schwarzwald, A Dictionary of Ladino, 236). 25 Schwarzwald, “Lexical Variations.”

Ladino Translations from Italy

Judeo-Spanish.26 Its formula of the beginning of the blessing is unique: Bendicho Tu YY noestro Dio Rey para siempre … (“Blessed Be You, A. our God, King for eternity …”), and not Rey del mundo (“King of the universe”).27 Its other features prove that it reflects some variety of a uniquely spoken Judeo-Spanish dialect, although the Ladino features are kept intact. b) In general, Ladino was used to translate liturgical texts used by Jews in the synagogue or in specific circumstances: the Pentateuch, the five scrolls, the Haftarot, and many chapters of Psalms were read in the synagogue; the Siddur was used daily at home or in the synagogue, and it also included many Psalms; the Haggadah was read on Passover during the Seder nights at home, and it was especially traditional to read the Ladino translation at the second Seder; Pirke Avot were read on the six Saturdays between Passover and Pentecost, one chapter per week, either at the synagogue or at the morning gathering of men after the praying. Three kinds of texts are exceptional when examining the Ladino translations: 1) the translations of the Aramaic Song of Songs and Habakkuk; 2) the translations of the Azharot; 3) The Haftara of the Ninth of Av.28 The translation of the Aramaic interpretation of the Song of Songs is attested as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, but it does not 26 There was another prayer book for women published in Thessalonica around 1565 without the Hebrew text, but it was totally different from this one (Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, Sidur para mujeres en ladino, Salónica, siglo xvi ( Jerusalén: Instituto Ben-Zvi 2012); Schwarzwald, “Lexical Variations”; Cohen, The Ladino Bookshelf, 179–80). 27 Only one time in the entire prayer book, in the first of the morning prayers, does the traditional blessing occur: Bendicho tu YY noestro Dio Rey delmundo, el dan a lgallo entendençia … (Blessed Be You, A. our God, King of the universe who gives the rooster understanding …). 28 Several researchers have investigated some of these texts, see for instance Leonor Carracedo, “El Cantar de los cantares en judeoespañol,” in Homenaje a Pedro Sáinz Rodríguez (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española,1986), 427–40, and Ana Maria Riaño-Lopez, “Una version del ‘Cantar de los Cantares’ en ladino,” Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos 26–8 (1977): 185–203; Ana Maria Riaño-López, “El ladino puntuado en una edición del Cantar de los Cantares de Liorna,” in History and Creativity in the Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Communities, ed. Tamar Alexander, Avraham Haim, Galit Hasan-Rokem, and Efraim Hazan ( Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayim, 1994), 27–34, regarding the Song of Songs. See Charles B. G. B. Abraham, Les Traductions judeo-espagnoles du poème liturgique hebreu “Azharot” de Salomon ibn Gabirol, imprimées aux XVIe et XVIIIe siècles (PhD dissertation, The University of Montreal, 1978), regarding the Azharot. See Iacob M. Hassán, “A vueltas con las ediciones del romancerillo sefardí aljamiado Endechas de Tis‘á beab (y su homónimo coplerillo),” in Jewish Culture and The Hispanic World: Essays in Memory of Joseph H. Silverman, ed. Samuel G. Armistead and Mishael M. Caspi, in collaboration with Murray Baumgarten and Juan de la Cuesta (Newark, DE: The Royal Academy of Spain, 2001), 217–34; and Hassán and Berenguer Amador, Introducción a la Biblia, both regarding the Haftara of the Ninth of Av.

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appear in Ferrara where it was translated literally from the Hebrew version. Here is an example of the translation from Aramaic: Example 3 Heb.: yiššāqēnī minšiqōt pīhu ki ṭōbīm dōdɛkā miyyāyin (Oh, how I wish you would kiss me passionately, For your lovemaking is more delightful than wine [Song of Songs 1:2]) Aramaic: ʾamar šəlomo nəbiya bərik šəmeh YY di hab lan ʾorayta ʿal yədohi dəMoše safra raba kətiba ʿal təren luḥe ʾabnaya vəšita sidre Mišna vəTalmuda bəgirsa vahava mitmelel ʿiman ʾapin bəʾapin kəgbar dinšiq ləḥabreh min sәgiʾut ḥibata dəḥabib la yətir mišibʿin ʿaməmaya Ladino: dišo šelomo el profeta bendicho su nombre de YY ke dio anos ley por mano de Moše el eskribano grande eskrita sobre dos tablas de piedra y sus ordenes de Mišna y Talmud kon meldadura. Y era hablan kon nos façes kon façes komo varon ke beza asu kompañero de muchidumbre de kerençia ke amo anos mas ke setenta pueblos (Salomon the prophet said: Blessed be the name of God who gave us the Law by the hands of Moses the great scribe, written on two tablets of stone and the laws of the Mishnah and Talmud in reading. And He talked to us face to face like a person who kisses his friend with great love that He loved us more than seventy nations. [Sefer Nequdot Hakesef (Venice, 1716): 8a–9b])

From this example, we see clearly that the Ladino is an exact copy of Jonathan’s Aramaic interpretation. The notion of kissing is retained in the translation, but the reference is allegorical, to the relationship between God and Israel, as interpreted since rabbinical times. The practice of translating the Aramaic interpretation is also found in other Jewish communities (e.g., the ex-converso communities in Amsterdam and London),29 the Jewish Neo-Aramaic of Kurdistan,30 and the Judeo-Persian communities.31 29 Compare to the Amsterdam (1701: 5) translation of the same verse in Latin script: dixo Selomoh el Propheta, Bendito su nombre de A. que dió à nos Ley, por mano de Mosseh escrivano grande, escrita sobre dos tablas de piedra, y sus ordenes de Misnà y Talmud con meldadura, y era hablan con nos fazes con fazes como varon que beza à su compañero, de muchedumbre de querencia que amò à nos aventajadamente, más que à setenta pueblos. Two differences are marked in boldface letters; another difference is the omission of the particle el in front of escrivano. 30 Yona Sabar, Targum de Targum, An Old Neo-Aramaic Version of the Targum of Song of Songs (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991). 31 Ezra Zion Melamed, Shir Hashirim: Aramaic Translation, Hebrew Translation, Tafsir in the Language of the Jews of Persia [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Dfus Limude Yerushalayim, 1971).

Ladino Translations from Italy

The translation of the Haftara from Habakkuk (2:20–3:19), read on the second day of Shavuot in the Sephardic tradition, appears only in the book Hafṭarot VeTargum (Florence, 1749). The Haftara includes the Ladino of the Aramaic interpretation, not the Ladino of the Hebrew text, as the following verse shows: Example 4 Heb.: təfillā laḥăbaqqūq hannābī ʿal šigyonot (Habakkuk 3:1; A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet on a musical instrument [or in a hymn]) Aramaic:  Ṣəlota dəṣale Ḥăbaqqūq nəbiyya kad ʾitgle leh ʿal ʾarka dihab lərašiyʿaya dəʾim yətobun ləʾorayta bilbab šəlim yištbik ləhon kol hobhon dahabu qŏdamohi ha bəšakota Ladino: Oraçion ke oro ḥabakuk el profeta, kuando fue deskubierto ael, çobre longura de tiempo, ke dio a los malos, ke se tornasen a la ley kon korason komplido, sera perdonado a elyos, y seran todos sus pekados, ke pekaron delante de el por yero (17a; The prayer that Habakkuk the prophet prayed when God revealed Himself to him [to the prophet]; about a long time that was given the evil ones [to repent], that if they return to the Law [the Torah] with whole heart, they will be forgiven for all their sins that they sinned before Him by mistake.)

Like the translation of the Song of Songs, this is an exact verbatim translation of the Aramaic interpretation. This translation is unique, and I could not find its parallel in any other Sephardic tradition. The Jewish Neo-Aramaic translation resembles the older Aramaic, but the Neo-Aramaic text is not a verbatim translation as is this Ladino one.32 The Azharot that Shlomo Ibn Gabirol wrote were incorporated into the Sephardic Siddur in medieval Spain.33 The Azharot were translated in the Ferrara Siddur as part of the Shavuot service,34 where they are divided into two sections: one group is recited on the first day (miṣvot ʿaśe [“Do” commandments]), and the other group is recited on the second day (miṣvot lo

32 Yona Sabar, “Paraphrases of Bible and Piyyutim in the Aramaic of the Jews of Kurdistan” [in Hebrew], Sefunot 10 (1966): 335–412. 33 The Azharot were attested in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Hebrew siddurim from Spain (Dr. Amos Dodi, personal communication). 34 Lazar, Libro de Oracyones, 208–17.

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taʿaśe [“Don’t do” commandments]). The same division appears in Italy in later Maḥzorim Le-Shalosh Regalim without the Ladino translation. The only Italian Ladino translation of the Azharot in Hebrew letters was printed in the Ketuba Leḥag Shavuot (Venice, 1753), though the Azharot were popular in the Ottoman Empire. The following two examples compare the Ferrara (FM) translation to the Venice (V) translation, and to an Ottoman Empire (O)35 translation.36 Example 5 Heb.:  šəmōr libbī maʿănɛ, hĕye bimʾōd mɛʿĕnɛ, yərā hāʾel umne dəbārāv hayyəšārīm FM:  Guarde mi coraçon ley, sea mucho afligido, tema al Dio y cuenta sus palabras las derechas.37 V:  guarda mi korason response, see en lo mucho kebrantado, teme a el Dio y konta, sus palabras las derechas (Venice, 1753: 7a). O:  guarda mi korason responso, see en lomuncho kebrantado, teme a el Dio ykonta, sus palabras las derechas (Vienna, 1860: 191b). Example 6 Heb.:  vəhū yislaḥ ʾašmā, vəhū yarbɛ ʿåṣmā, vehū yitten ḥåkmā ləhābīn nimhārīm FM: Y el perdone culpa, y el amochigue fuerça, y el dee sciencia, para fazer entender a torpes. V: Y el perdona kulpa, y el mochigua fortaleza, y el da sençia, por azer entender torpes. O: Y el perdona kulpa, y el mochigos38 fortaleza, y el da sençia, por azer entender torpes. 35 The Ottoman Empire version is the Maḥzor Le-Shalosh Regalim Minhag Sefarad biqhilot qedoshot beKonstantina umdinot Mizraḥ uMaʿarav veItalia (“Prayer Book for the Three Holydays of the Custom of Sepharad in the Holy Communities of Constantinople and the Countries in the East and West and Italy” [Vienna, 1860]). Other earlier versions from Thessaloniki could have been chosen as well, but the results would have been similar. 36 See Abraham’s, Les Traductions judeo-espagnoles study of the Azharot. 37 Lazar, Libro de Oracyones, 208. 38 This is probably a typographic error where a (Aleph or He) was replaced by Samech, and it should have been mochigua, as above.

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The two verses from the Azharot show that FM is slightly different from V and O, but V and O are very similar to each other. There are some grammatical differences in the use of verbs (guarde-guarda, sea-see, tema-teme, dee-da); differences in vocabulary (ley-response); and differences in the use of Spanish versus Judeo-Spanish forms (afligido-kebrantado, fuerça-fortaleza). The other differences are minor (e.g., mucho-muncho in other places). The Venice and Ottoman versions evidently follow the same tradition and probably could have been traced back to an old Sephardic Ladino tradition.39 One of the most popular texts in Judeo-Spanish and in many other Jewish traditions is the Haftara of the Ninth of Av ( Jeremiah 8:13–9:23). The Haftara was published in Seder [ʾArba/ Ḥamesh] Taʿaniyot in Venice, Pisa, and Livorno from 161440 in Hebrew letters. The Haftara appears next to the Hebrew text, but clearly this is not a Ladino translation, as the following example shows: Example 7 Heb.: ʿābar qāṣīr kālā qāyiṣ văʾanāḥnū lō nōšāʿnū (Harvest time has gone, and the summer is over, and still we have not been redeemed [ Jeremiah 8:20]). L: dize la konpania de Israel pençamos de alegrarnos komo se alegra el çegador kon la segada y kon las frutas del verano. Y pasa tiempo y viene tiempo y nos41 somos çalvos. (Israel’s community says: we think of being glad as the harvester is glad with the harvest and with the summer fruits. And time passes and comes [another] time and are [not] saved [Seder Arba Ta‘aniyot. ([Pisa, 1781]: 111b)]

Part of the Hebrew content is retained in the rephrasing of the verse, and the beginning is based on the Aramaic interpretation (ʾămārat kəništā dəyiśrāʾel [“said the community of Israel”]), but not in the remaining section. This “Ladino” text looks like a free translation, based on Midrashic and interpretive traditions, but 39 See the discussion above in Sections 2 and 4. 40 See Alan S. Corre, “A Judeo-Spanish Homily for the Ninth of Ab,” Jewish Quarterly Review 56 (1965/6): 212–24, and the abovementioned references of Hassán & Romero (1978), Hassán (2001). Cf. Alan S. Corre, “The Spanish Haftara for the Ninth of Ab,” Jewish Quarterly Review 48 (1957/8): 21. 41 The word no is missing here. This word occurs in the Livorno Seder Ḥameš Taʿaniyot: 109a (Livorno, 1860), and in the Ottoman Empire versions.

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I have not found the sources. This tradition of a long translation in Jewish languages is common to other communities (e.g., Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects),42 but the fact that the translations do not resemble one another43 shows that they do not follow a common source, unlike the translations of the Song of Songs and Habakkuk. Therefore, unless the Aramaic or Midrashic source is discovered, they can be considered a non-Ladino text.

6.  Conclusion: Should Any Liturgical Text Be Called Ladino? In this paper, I have concentrated on the liturgical Ladino texts found in Italy. The texts in the first items (a–d) presented in the Introduction are the most widespread among the Sephardic communities, while the texts mentioned in the last items (e–f) are rarer. In my view, it is unjustified to consider any use of Judeo-Spanish in the liturgical literature as Ladino. Sometimes, for instance, instructions occur in the prayer books both in Hebrew and in Judeo-Spanish, but since they are not identical in every case, they cannot be considered Ladino, as in the following instruction found in the Passover Haggada: Example 8 Heb.: veyiqaḥ haʾapyo veyiṭbol baḥaroset umbarek (and he should take the celery and dip it in the Ḥaroset, and he says the Blessing [Venice, 1609]) L: y tomara del apio y enteniera en el vinagre y si no tubiere vinagre sale de obligacion kon tenier en agua de sal y dira esta Beraka (and he should take from the celery and dip it in the vinegar and if he does not have vinegar he can fulfill his duty by dipping in salt water and he should say this blessing)

42 Yona Sabar, “Two commentaries on the Haftara ‘Asof Asifem’ for the Ninth of Ab in the Neo-Aramaic dialects of the Jews of Kurdistan” [in Hebrew], in Arameans, Aramaic and the Aramaic Literary Tradition, ed. Michael Sokoloff (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1983), 11–41. 43 Sabar himself brings two different versions of the same Haftara in “Two commentaries.” Compare Corre, “A Judeo-Spanish Homily” with Corre, “The Spanish Haftara”—the Venice version with the Amsterdam version.

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The Judeo-Spanish instruction is longer and more explanatory than the Hebrew one. In the Hebrew instruction, the celery is dipped in the ḥaroset, whereas in the equivalent instruction the celery is dipped in vinegar. There is also a difference in the sequence of tenses: in Hebrew, the instruction begins in the future tense and continues in the present, whereas the Judeo-Spanish instruction begins and finishes in the future tense. The Judeo-Spanish instruction seems to be independent of the Hebrew one; therefore, it could not be considered Ladino. Not every liturgical text is automatically Ladino. The main criteria for its inclusion in Ladino is its reliance on the Hebrew text (and rarely on the Aramaic text), and its syntactic dependence on the source text. Therefore, the last example (7) in the previous section should be excluded, unless the original Midrashic Hebrew or Aramaic text is found. In the course of this research, I have excluded several texts because they do not meet the above criteria. I did not include Sefer Lev Ṭahor (Livorno, 1753) despite the fact that it includes the Hebrew prayers for Yom Kippur with a translation in Latin letters, because it reflects a Spanish rather than a Ladino tradition. Too many features in this work deviate from the standard Ladino translations. I also excluded the Keṭuba Le-Ḥag Shavuot, written by Yehuda bar Leon Alkalay. This work was an original Judeo-Spanish poem not related to the parallel Hebrew poem Darak kokav miyaʿaqov hayom haze (“A star will march forth out of Jacob [Israel] this day”), attributed to Rabbi David Pardo. This Keṭuba appeared in several Maḥzorim Le-Shalosh Regalim from Vienna, Thessalonica, and Venice, and in Šifʿat Revivim (Livorno, 1793). In Šifʿat Revivim, the Keṭuba appears without the parallel Hebrew poem, and there is no mention of its author. The printing houses in Italy, especially those in Venice and Livorno, served as the main suppliers of Ladino texts in Hebrew letters. The Ferrara printing house of the ex-converso families was especially active in the mid-sixteenth century; from that time, many of the Ladino books in Latin letters for the exconverso communities were printed in other Italian cities as well as in Amsterdam (rarely in London and Hamburg). Overall, the printed materials in Ladino in Hebrew letters from Italy maintained close ties with the Ottoman Empire traditions, except for some late editions of Pirke Avot from Pisa and Livorno and the Haftara from Firenze (1749), which demonstrate a clear influence of the Modern Spanish pronunciation. These ties are revealed in the types of Ladino texts printed and in their language tradition. The intriguing research issue is to discover additional Ladino manuscripts and printed materials from Italy that can enrich the linguistic study of both Judeo-Spanish and Ladino.

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CHAPTER 9

The Jews of France and Italy during the Later Middle Ages and the Renaissance SHIMON SCHWARZFUCHS

W

hen looking at the map, it is clear that there must have been some interaction between the Jewish communities of Italy and their French counterparts during the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Not only do they look close geographically, but also the very existence of the Apostolic States in southern France implied some kind of relationship between the papal cities of Rome and Avignon, and their respective Jewish communities. The very fact that the Hebrew script of Avignon and the Comtat communities belonged to the Italian tradition is striking. A few reports indicate that the Jewish communities of Avignon and Comtat had occasionally requested the assistance of the Jewish community in Rome in their dealings with the apostolic government, but this does not negate the fact that the French communities of southern France negotiated primarily with the church envoys in France. On the other hand, it is a well-known fact that the new relationship between French Jews, from the north or south of France, and Italian Jews resulted from a large-scale immigration of French refugees in search of a new home in the peninsula. Expulsions of entire Jewish communities were a common sight in late medieval Western Europe. We know where and how the fugitives found new homes, whether in the east or the south. It is believed that, in time, they integrated into the Jewish communities that offered them asylum. Jewish historians, however, did not pay much attention to their fate, and considered their integration quite natural and nearly total. Iberian Jewry—which was of great numerical significance, and wished to preserve its Sephardic character whether in Christian countries or in the expanding Ottoman Empire—was the only exception.

The Jews of France and Italy during the Later Middle Ages

I recently tried to discover what happened to the Jewish population expelled from France in 1306, which sought refuge in the German-speaking countries of Central Europe.1 The result was quite confusing. A great number of Jews had been compelled to leave France very quickly, and had left most of their belongings there. However, it seems that a few converted in order to avoid expulsion. The Catholic church would have been more than happy to celebrate such an event—which would have served its missionary endeavors—but it had nothing to say about it! Curiously enough, the family name Ṣarfati, the Frenchman, which should help to identify the French refugees, was used infrequently in German-speaking countries during the years following the expulsion, and would soon disappear altogether. They rapidly became the “indiscoverable” refugees! This unexpected result invites a comparison with other countries where large numbers of refugees from France settled in the wake of the expulsion, notably Italy. The names Ṣarfati and Provençal are quite common in the Italian states, as are other cognomina that indicate the origin of the families using them. It has been known for a long time that the three communities—Asti, Fossano, and Moncalvo (the Apam communities)—remained faithful to the old French rites until the twentieth century, at least on the High Holidays.2 Could there be a better demonstration of their French origin? We will not deal here with the origin of these communities and the reasons, sociological or other, for their persistence, but one cannot ignore the fact that French kings of the House of Valois ruled the entire region for a long period. The Jewish community of Rome before the ghetto should also be considered, in view of the influx of French Jews seen there. This will then be a presentation of the initial modest results of a survey of the demographic situation from the end of the fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century, before the eventual disappearance of these separate communities within an amalgamated Judeo-Italian society. The results are based largely on the documents published under Shlomo Simonsohn’s direction in his

1 See on this matter Simon Schwarzfuchs, “L’expulsion des juifs de France en 1306: des réfugiés introuvables?,” in Philippe le Bel et les Juifs du Royaume de France (1306), ed. Danièle Iancu (Paris, 2012), 201–10. 2 See for instance Daniel Goldschmidt’s Introduction to his edition of the New Year Machzor ( Jerusalem, 1970), xiiin6.

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Documentary History of the Jews in Italy, and more precisely the volumes authored by Renata Segré,3 Ariel Toaff,4 and Kenneth Stow.5 We should always remember that there was no entity that could be described as the community of the Jews of France existing during this period. One must always differentiate between the Ṣarfatim, the Jews of Ṣarfat (i.e., northern France), and those of Provence, this name designating the Comté de Toulouse and the Languedoc, as well as the Comté, later Royaume, de Provence, which would become part of France in 1481/2, with the exception of the French Apostolic States. The Jews originating from these provinces, of course, would be called Provençalim. It seems that the Jews who left the French Papal States—Comtat and Avignon—shared this name with them, as they are never designated as a group by a Comtat-connected name of origin. The Jews were expelled from the Kingdom of France in 1306, but this expulsion became complete only in 1394, since there were some resettlements between these two dates. One should also remember that the medieval Kingdom of France was smaller than modern France. Such provinces as Savoy, Roussillon, or the Comté—later Royaume, or Kingdom—of Provence, only much later became part of France. It is therefore unsurprising that many Jews sought refuge in these still alien provinces. The Kingdom of Provence was annexed by the French monarchy in 1480/1, and what remained of its Jewish population was finally expelled in 1501. The other provinces became French much later. Another expulsion, although on a smaller scale, occurred when, in his Bulla Hebreorum gens of February 26, 1569, Pope Pius V ordered the expulsion of the Jews living in his states, with the exception of Rome and Ancona. The Jews of Avignon and the three Comtat Venaissin communities of Carpentras, Cavaillon, and L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue were forgotten completely. Their inhabitants prepared themselves for their exile, together with the inhabitants of a number of smaller neighboring Jewish communities. In circumstances that have not been clarified, Avignon and the Comtat communities were eventually included in the list of the Jewish communities tolerated by the Apostolic State, but many of

3 Renata Segré, The Jews in Piedmont, I–III ( Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1986–90). The documents of this publication and of the two following ones will be quoted according to their serial number and the page of publication. 4 Ariel Toaff, The Jews in Umbria, I–III (1245–1736) (Leiden–New York–Köln: Brill, 1993–94). 5 Kenneth Stow, The Jews in Rome, I–II (1536–57) (Leiden–New York–Köln: Brill, 1995–97). The collection of documents The Jews of Genoa, I–II, ed. Rossana Urbani and Guido Nathan Zazzu (Leiden–New York–Köln: Brill, 1999) was not taken into account in this survey.

The Jews of France and Italy during the Later Middle Ages

their inhabitants had already left.6 We already showed, some twenty years ago, that the publication of the bulla by Pope Pius V had immediate consequences for the Comtadin Jews when they were ordered to leave on April 4, 1569. Three months later, during July of the same year, 75 families (numbering 298 souls) had already signed an agreement in Marseille that provided for their rapid transportation to the Holy Land.7 There can be no doubt that this forgotten expulsion had important consequences, as will be seen later on. The situation of the Jewish community of Rome has been clarified by two recent publications that will now be discussed. The Aragonese and Castilian communities, which were established in Rome in the wake of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, disagreed on the application of an ancient minhag concerning the income of the Talmud Torah society. A compromise was reached in 1521, but the sack of Rome (May 6, 1527), when French troops overthrew the entire city, made a reorganization of Jewish communal life unavoidable.8 The Jewish population had decreased and the Aragonese were compelled to unite with the Catalans,9 and the Castilians with the French—the Ṣarfatim hailing from northern France.10 They were to join the Castilians later on in order to survive.11 The French Jews who had set up their own synagogue in 150412 (they may have had an earlier place of worship) had now become a minority in the new community. The old quarrel between the Aragonese and Castilian synagogues that had been settled by compromise in 1521 erupted anew in 1538.13 Rabbi Isaac, son of the late Emmanuel Lattes, the Provençali from Carpentras,14 had come to Rome toward the end of 1537 to deal with a family matter. The opponents approached him in 1538, and asked him to settle their quarrel. He eventually managed to do 6 René Moulinas, Les Juifs du Pape en France (Toulouse: Privat, 1981), 37–43. 7 Simon Schwarzfuchs, “Joseph Caro et la Yeshiva provençale de Safed,” REJ 150, nos. 1–2 (1991): 151–59. 8 Simon Schwarzfuchs, “Controversi nella communità di Roma agli inizi del secolo XVI,” in Scritti in memoria di Enzo Sereni, ed. D. Carpi, A. Milano, and U. Navon ( Jerusalem: Fondazione Sally Mayer, 1970), 95–100 (Italian section); 95–100, 133–43 (Hebrew section). 9 The Aragonese were united with the Catalans already in 1541 (Stow, The Jews in Rome, 525, p. 209). 10 The French scola was independent as late as 1536 (ibid., 121, p. 44) and 1539 (ibid., 383–6, pp. 145–7). 11 They were united already in 1542 (ibid., 682, pp. 277–8). 12 Ariel Toaff, Il Ghetto di Roma nel Cinquecento. Confliti etnici e problemi socio-economici [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1984), ixn1. 13 See above note 8. 14 About his activity in Italy, see Simon Schwarzfuchs, “Rabbi Isaac Joshua ben Immanuel of Lattes and the Jews of the Apostolic States,” Italia Judaica 6 1998): 66–79.

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so and a new agreement was reached.15 We can now point to the fact that there was then in Rome a small Jewish community originating from northern France, and that the visiting Rabbi Lattes, an inhabitant of one of the Comtat Venaissin communities, was referred to as a Provençal.16 The publication of the regesta of the Roman Jewish notaries for the years 1536–5717 allows for a further glance at the internal life of the Roman community. These regesta were published in their English translation or in summary, and we are sometimes at a loss to understand them. How should one understand the term “French” as used in the translations? Fortunately, in some of the few extracts of the Hebrew original we can read Ṣarfatim!18 On the other hand, all former Avignon or Comtat Venaissin residents who are quoted in the regesta are designated as Provençali. The persistence of the Jewish Provençal name Lattes is obvious. The French influence in the joint Castilian–French community remained strong, as shown by the election in 1542 of a marbitz Torah, a spiritual leader, called Abraham Ṣarfati, from the aforementioned Apam communities, who was then awarded a two-year contract.19 This is a case of internal French migration within the Jewish Italian communities. The Ṣarfati element may have arrived directly from France after the 1394 expulsion, but it is more likely that it can be traced to the French Jewish settlements in Savoy, neighboring localities (in the modern Ain département), and the Jewish communities of northern Italy. It probably remained a minor element in the so-called French community. The Provençal element had come mostly, if not entirely, to Rome from the Apostolic States in France and not from the former Kingdom of Provence after the final and definitive expulsion of its Jews in 1501. This should not surprise us: Rome, Avignon, and the Comtat belonged to the same world. Did the Provençal population increase after the 1569 expulsion? It is quite unlikely that the different popes would have been eager to welcome a new Jewish influx originating from southern France in their city, while reducing the Jewish population of their French holdings. In 1571, there were only eighteen French and Provençal Jewish families in Rome.20 Despite their small number, in 1554 15 See especially Schwarzfuchs, “Controversi,” 135–43 (Hebrew section). 16 Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that two or three Provençal Jews were members of the Catalan–Aragonese scola in 1555. See Stow, The Jews in Rome, 1796, 783. 17 See the introduction to Stow, ibid., n4. 18 See, for instance, Stow, ibid., 1180, p. 481 and 1578, p. 683. 19 Ibid., 682, pp. 277–8. 20 Toaff, Il Ghetto di Roma, 37–8. They represented 17 percent of the community. The German Jews accounted for 13 percent and the Spanish, Portuguese, and North Africans for 70 percent.

The Jews of France and Italy during the Later Middle Ages

they had threatened that they would set up their own independent community.21 Nothing came of it, but two years later it was proposed nevertheless, to no avail, to merge the four communities: Aragonese, Catalan, Castilian, and French.22 Such a proposal hardly testifies to their increase in numbers and strength! We have to turn to northern Italy and to Piedmont in particular in order to appreciate fully the size of the large immigration of French Jews—Ṣarfatim or Provençalim—that took place there. The Piedmontese Jewish population was mostly of northern French origin. They had come directly or indirectly to northern Italy in the wake of the successive expulsions from France during the fourteenth century. It is not always easy to differentiate between them and the Provençal settlers who may have sought refuge in Italy. Northern Italy had long been a Jewish desert, waiting for the appearance of its first Jewish settlements during the last quarter of the fourteenth century. It is clear that the 1306 expulsion of the Jews of France was not felt there. We will find them there later on, as a consequence of a new migratory movement that started in the Duchy of Savoy—which was not yet part of France—where a significant number of Jews expelled from northern France had found refuge in 1306 and the following years. As far as we know, very few Provençal Jews moved to this region during this period. The best known of these “French” Jews is of course Yohanan Treves, who succeeded his father Mattathias as Master of the Law (chief rabbi) of the Jews of northern France. He would later become one of the three masters of the law of the Jews of the German Empire.23 Treves became a typical name indicating French origin, but we do not know to which French locality it refers. Two other “French” rabbis of the first rank will also appear in the same region: Joseph Colon, the famed Mahariq, born in Chambéry, and Azriel Dayena, which should be understood as Azriel from Yenna (nothing to do with the German city of Iena, where there were no Jews at the time), whose collected responsa were published nearly forty years ago.24 The latter came from the small city of Yennes,

21 They had united in 1527, but quarreled later on. The French claimed that they were ready to maintain their union, but that they were also ready for a separation. Stow, The Jews in Rome, 1578, p. 683. 22 Stow, ibid., 1911, p. 839, where the authorization to negotiate was granted. Nothing came of it. 23 Simon Schwarzfuchs, “Yohanan Trèves et le dernier refuge de l’école talmudique française après l’expulsion de 1394,” in Rashi et la culture juive en France du Nord au moyen âge, ed. Gilbert Dahan, Gérard Nahon, and Elie Nicolas (Paris–Louvain: Peeters, 1997), 83–4. 24 Sheelot—Teshuvot R. Azriel Dayena, I–II, ed. Jacob Buchsenbaum (Tel Aviv, 1977–79). In one of his responsa, he mentions his origin: “we, the Frenchmen” (73, p. 152).

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in French Savoy, and may have been a pupil of Mahariq. He lived in a number of Piedmontese communities. The Duchy of Savoy, established in 1416, annexed Piedmont two years later. This facilitated internal migrations in the new state, and we should not be surprised to discover members of the same Jewish families east and west of the Alps. A rather small number of French settlers identified themselves through the addition of their geographic origin to their name: Noyon, Pontoise, Vermenton, Chalon, Trevoux, Lompnés, etc. Some of course adopted the name of the Savoyard and other neighboring localities where they had settled, such as Chambéry, Thoissey, Nantua, Yennes, Saint Genix, etc.25 The first name Sansino or Semysson, meaning Samson, may also indicate a northern French origin.26 Few Provençal Jews found their way to Savoy–Piedmont before 1500. Salomon de Lattes and Mancip Abraam (both Comtadin Jews) were employed as servants in Torino between 1424 and 1426;27 an Aquineto de Manosque (who could well have been of northern French origin) lived in Savigliano in 1425;28 Jacob Darly (= d’Arles) appeared between the years 1440–54, and that is about all.29 Later on, during the early sixteenth century, the learned Avignon-born Abraham Farissol would move to Mantua, Ferrara, or Sermide, but not to Piedmont.30 Datilo Joab from France (also called Bonvino ben Samuel Sarfati) would be found in Mantova in the early fifteenth century.31 These newcomers were mostly Ṣarfatim, and we are unable to identify many, if any, fugitives from the Kingdom of Provence among them. The rabbinic family named Provençali was active in Mantova during the sixteenth century, but its origin is unclear.32 According to the figures produced by Daniele Iancu, there were no more than two thousand Jews in the southern Kingdom of Provence in 1501. A thousand 25 See the Index of Segré, The Jews in Piedmont, III. Michele Luzzati has examined very carefully the origin of the names used by French Jews in Piedmont and the information they may convey. According to the results of his survey, most came from southern France. See his contribution: “Juifs originaires du Midi de la France en Piémont (XVe–XVIIe siècles),” in L’expulsion des Juifs de Provence et de l’Europe méditerranéenne (XVe–XVIe siècles), ed. Danièle Iancu-Agou (Paris–Louvain: Peeters, 2005), 131–39. 26 Compare Segré, The Jews in Piedmont, 623, p. 286 with 688, p. 312. 27 Ibid., 106, p. 48. 28 Ibid., 130, p. 158. See also 114, p. 51. 29 Ibid., 307, p. 137; 432, p. 196; 543, p. 251. 30 Shlomo Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantova ( Jerusalem: Kiryath Sepher, 1977), 707. 31 Ibid., 202, 204, 249, 572. 32 Ibid., 727–30.

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converted in order to avoid expulsion, and the remainder scattered among the Mediterranean countries, but not in northern Italy.33 The fact remains nevertheless that the number of visible Provençal Jews alongside the Ṣarfatim in Piedmont during the last third of the sixteenth century greatly increased. This occurred after the publication in 1569 of the Bulla Hebraeorum gens, which authorized the presence of Jews in the Apostolic States in two cities only: Rome and Ancona. The Jews of Avignon and the Comtat had no choice but to prepare themselves for their exile. Some kind of unofficial or informal agreement eventually would be reached, but a great number of their members had already made preparations for their approaching departure, and many had already left. The Jewish population of most of the many small adjoining Jewish communities had to leave. The population of the great communities diminished considerably: the Carpentras carrière (this is the Provençal equivalent of the word ghetto) counted 496 Jewish inhabitants in 1551. According to an enquiry made toward the end of 1570, only 252 remained. The census of September 2, 1571, found only 57 Jewish inhabitants. In Avignon, the number of the taxpayers fell from 102 in 1556 to 77 in 1577. The decline was dramatic.34 Not all of the expelled sought refuge in European countries. It would seem that most decided to turn to northern Italy, as papal policy had practically closed the doors of the Apostolic States before them. Very few exceptions would be reported. On January 10, 1570, the ruler of Piedmont (Savoy) authorized (in fact invited) the Jews of Avignon and the Comtat to settle in the localities where there were no Jewish inhabitants, under the control of the authorities and an appointed representative of the Piedmontese Jewish community.35 One year later, there were already complaints against the settlers who had come without securing the necessary agreements.36 The increase of the Jewish communities, which included Cuneo, Fossano, Cherasco, Savigliano, Torino, Cirié, Chieri, etc., was impressive. According to a 1596 census, twenty-eight Jewish families then lived in Cuneo. Nearly all of them were from Avignon and the Comtat, as evidenced by their names: Lisbona, Lattes, Valabrega, Montellis, Lunello, Carcassona, etc.37 Elsewhere we will find other names, like Pogetto or Pugietto 33 Danièle Iancu-Agou, “Une Provence remplie d’olim Judei: l’impôt qui les singularise dès 1503,” in L’expulsion des Juifs de Provence, 251. 34 Moulinas, Les Juifs du Pape, 40. 35 Segré, The Jews in Piedmont, 1030, p. 466. 36 Ibid., 1041, p. 471. 37 Ibid., 1645, pp. 802–4.

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(= Puget)38 or Miglau (= Milhaud). Members of the Puget family were in Asti already in 1539 or 1561.39 Miglau family members were reported to be living in Torino at the beginning of the seventeenth century.40 Rabbi Benzion Provençali lived in Cuneo at this time.41 Some of the Comtadin Jews had already come to Piedmont before the 1569 expulsion. There were many newcomers, but we do not find among these immigrants any who can be identified with certainty as originating from the former Kingdom of Provence. In the absence of a contemporary census of the Piedmontese Jewish population, we cannot decide who constituted the majority: the Ṣarfatim or the Provençalim, but we should not underestimate the numbers of the former. Oral tradition affirms that members of the Segré family—whose name apparently was reported first during the second quarter of the fifteenth century, but this may be misleading—were of French origin, and there is no reason to question this, although we still do not know the origin of their name. To this day, they share this secret with the Treves family. According to Renata Segré’s estimation, there were at least five thousand Jewish inhabitants in Piedmont in 1789, but their number probably declined during the last part of the sixteenth century.42 It would be surprising, therefore, if either the French or the former Provençali community respectively amounted to much more than a thousand souls each. Recently published correspondence confirms the importance of the Avignon–Comtadine settlements in Piedmont in general, and in Cuneo in particular.43 As already shown, an important number of the so-called “expelled” had moved to the Holy Land during the years 1569–70, and a yeshiva, called the Provence Yeshiva, was eventually established in Safed. By that time, the few Ṣarfatim who had preceded them had practically disappeared. The new community—described as Provençali—did not have the means to support this yeshiva, and funds had to be raised. The celebrated Joseph Caro, who had participated in its creation, joined his voice to those of its leaders. A letter was addressed to “the officers and the leaders of the Provençal community in

38 For the different spellings of this name, see Segré, The Jews in Piedmont, III, Index. 39 Ibid., 810, p. 362; 956, p. 429. 40 Ibid., 1912, p. 932. See the Index. 41 Ibid., 1903, p. 927, etc. 42 Segré, The Jews in Piedmont, I, Introduction, p. C. 43 Abraham David, “The Assistance of the Community of Cuneo to the Yeshiva of the Provençal Community in Safed” [in Hebrew], Shalem 4 (1984): 439–44.

The Jews of France and Italy during the Later Middle Ages

Piedmont and to their head … Jehudah [Leone] de Lattes.”44 They obviously felt that Cuneo was the center of “Provençali” life in Piedmont. It is worthwhile noting that a few years later, in 1637, this Provençal community had already adopted a new name: in a letter to the L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue community, it called itself “the Holy community of France (Fransia) here in Safed.”45 Some of the expelled may have returned to their former homes or settled in Piedmont, but it is clear that no reinforcement had come from southern France. One may well ask if it is possible that their well-to-do brethren sent the poorest among the expelled Jews in order to set up their banks there? Another case—that of Florence—while interesting, is hardly representative. Michael Luzzato notes a Jewish physician coming from Provence and another one of French origin, who were present in the city in 1412 and 1476, respectively. He also showed that the notary Piero d’Antonio da Vinci, Léonardo’s father, quoted in his 1466 deeds the names of a Jew from Arles and his wife, the daughter of Maestro Salomon and granddaughter of the late Marseille Maestro Rubino Gerundini, with those of two other daughters and one son of the same Maestro Salomon. Yohanan son of Isaac Alemano (!) from France would soon join them in 1481, and later Maestro Moses son of Isaac Lattes from Jerusalem (!), and some representatives of the Galli (French) family. Elisabeth Bergolotto has added to this list the names of five Provençal Jews and four Ṣarfatim (i.e., Jews from northern France). They are all mentioned as living in Florence in 1448 and 1454.46 The scene in neighboring Umbria is quite different: we find a number of Jews in Assisi, Perugia, and Rimini, whose name is followed by the description: from France!47 They had all come from northern France after the expulsion of 1394, and none from Provence. There is no reason to believe that a survey of the situation in other contemporary communities is likely to bring forth radically different conclusions. The exile of the remaining Jews still living in the Kingdom of Provence, who were expelled from the unified Kingdom of France in 1501, and their probable settlement in Italy did not change the general picture: they do not appear as such 44 Ibid., 440. 45 Schwarzfuchs, “Joseph Caro,” 159. 46 Elisabeth Bergolotto, “Juifs provençaux et Juifs français dans les sources florentines au XVe siècle,” in L’expulsion des Juifs de Provence, ed. Iancu-Agou, 141–8. For M. Luzatto’s articles, see 142n6. 47 Toaff, Umbria, 679, pp. 345–6; 1000, p. 515; 1669, p. 1680.

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on the Italian scene. They probably mixed with their Provençal predecessors. Genealogical research may help to solve the mystery of their disappearance from the public eye. It is still possible, even today, to recognize in the Italian Jewish community those families descending from the Jews of northern France and their Provençal counterparts, who originated mostly in the apostolic possessions near Avignon. They remained conscious of their French origins, but in due course became Italian Jews. Their number was not negligible and their influence cannot be disregarded. They had left their original communities and did not envisage a return. Very few, if any, did return there before the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER 10

Torah and Nature in the Writings of Some Italian Jewish Thinkers of the Renaissance MIGUEL ANTONIO BELTRÁN MUNAR

A

ccording to Bonfil,1 the sixteenth-century Jewish worldview was an eclectic fusion of scholastic Aristotelianism and Renaissance humanism, of philosophy and Kabbalah, maintained not only by Jewish thinkers in Italy but also by Jewish scholars in European centers that had cultural ties with Italy: Salonika, Prague, or Cracow. As Hara Tirosh-Samuelson pointed out in an article published in 1997,2 one of the chief assumptions shared by most Italian Jewish thinkers during the sixteenth century was that God created nature in accordance with the paradigm of a transcendent, supernal Torah that some of them identified with His divine essence. In this sense, it can be inferred that the essence of God is the paradigm of natural things, in a way that allows us to call Him the originator of nature, or, as Idel called Him in an impressive work, Naturator.3 1 Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy, trans. Jonathan Chipman (London: The Library of Jewish Civilization, 1993; originally published in Hebrew, 1979), cf. particularly 180–98. Robert Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, trans. Anthony Oldcorn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 156–77. 2 Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, “Theology of Nature in Sixteenth-Century Italian Jewish Philosophy,” Science in Context 10 (1997): 529–70. 3 Moshe Idel, “Deus sive natura—Metamorphosis of a Dictum from Maimonides to Spinoza,” in Maimonides and the Sciences, ed. R. S. Cohen and H. Levine (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2000), 87–110. After quoting Moscato’s Kol Yehudah, Idel writes: “Though the gematria is absent here, we can easily see that the description of God as Naturator, combines both

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Given the intrinsic connection existing between the revealed Torah of Moses and God’s supernal Torah, created nature is regarded as the way in which God shows His divine essence. Another shared assumption states that Jews are the most competent interpreters of God’s created nature because they alone are the microcosm of God’s macrocosm. As recipients of the revealed Torah, they alone live according to the divine prescriptions, so that their souls are a mirror in which God’s created nature is reflected.4 The present study tries to develop the interpretation according to which this consideration of the transcendent Torah is linked with a profound Neoplatonism maintained by these thinkers, even those who confessed their adscription to Aristotelianism. Yehi’el Nissim of Pisa was one such thinker. In the introduction to his Minhat Kenaot (The Gift of Zeal), he maintained that the Torah overflows with notions of incommensurable value, like the primary material, and that the Torah is self-sufficient, given that everything is included in its letters,5 and despite the notorious differences between them concerning their adherence to the Platonic and the Aristotelian orientation. In Judah Moscato’s Sermon Six, entitled Things Whose Creation Preceded the World, the preacher teaches that the Torah is the first of these things, as written: “The Lord brought me forth at the beginning of his way, before the works of old” (Proverbs 8:22). It could be said that before His works of Old He emanated the Torah, “which is a flame separating itself from the spark of His infinite wisdom.”6 The Torah preceded even the Throne of Glory, for “wisdom is more of a stronghold to a wise man” (Ecclesiastes 7:19). In Sermon Seven, The Power of Torah in the Creation of the World, Moscato seeks to clarify the statement at the beginning of Bereshit Rabbah in which the Torah is found on the same level as the six causes mentioned by Plato: agent, material, formal, final, instrumental, and natural, for the Torah says: “I was the instrument of the artistry of the the Mishnaic simile … of God as impressing His creatures, in the original Tovea’, with his description of real nature” (98). 4 Abraham Yagel, for instance, states that every natural creature is stamped with a divine seal, signifying that it is the work of God’s hands, and that the task of the Jew, as interpreter of created nature, is to comprehend the divine seals of nature. Tirosh-Samuelson considers these and other assumptions “a ‘theology of nature’ … because the point of departure for the Jewish thinkers was the revealed tradition itself and not the human capacity to reason” (1997, 534). 5 See Alessandro Guetta, “Religious Life and Erudition in Pisa: Yeḥiel Nissim da Pisa and the Crisis of Aristotelism,” in Cultural Intermediaries: Jewish Intellectuals in Early Modern Italy, ed. D. B. Ruderman and G. Veltri (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 86. 6 Judah Moscato, Sermons, Volume One, ed. G. Miletto and G. Veltri (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 266.

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Holy One, blessed be He.”7 The Holy One looks at the Torah and creates the world. In the beginning God created, where beginning is nothing other than the Torah, as it is written—and here again Moscato quotes Proverbs 8:22: “the Lord made me as the beginning of His way.” During the entirety of Creation, the Holy One would look at everything that was written in it, and He would update each thing by looking at the Torah. All the causes therefore, converge in it. David ben Judah Messer Leon’s conception of the supernal Torah demonstrates his claim that faith perfects reason. The Torah is the verbal manifestation of divine revelation, and prophecy is the vehicle for its delivery to humankind. As Idel pointed out: … in the writings of two kabbalists flourishing at the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth, we find a formula that conveys a total identification of the Torah, that is, the Pentateuch, with God. The first text, a late thirteenth-century Castilian treatise named Sefer ha-Yihud, deeply influenced Recanati. In his Introduction to the Commentary on the Rationales of the Commandments, he wrote that all the sciences altogether are hinted at in the Torah, because there is nothing that is outside Her [the Torah]… . Therefore, the Holy One … is nothing that is outside the Torah, and the Torah is nothing that is outside Him, and … this is the reason why the sages of the Kabbalah said the Holy One … is the Torah.8

Idel suggests that this is quite a logical development in a religion based on a book, but that it develops some forms of extreme mysticism, and there is a kabbalistic tradition specific to Italian Jewish thinkers, developed by Yohanan Alemanno, characterized by a certain distant respect for the Zohar’s mythical bent.9 In the works of Yehi’el Nissim of Pisa, we find that the upper creatures are a paradigm of the lower creatures. This is because every lower thing has a superior power from which it came into existence. This resembles the relationship of the shadow to the object that casts it. The lower thing needs the upper one, this being a strict necessity, and the upper things require the lower ones to a limited extent. Thus, the entire world turns out to be one entity; in this manner, each 7 Bereshit Rabbah 1:1. 8 Moshe Idel, Kabbalah in Italy 1280–1510: A Survey (New Haven, CT–London: Yale University Press, 2011), 137. 9 See Moshe Idel, “The Magic and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the Kabbalah in the Renaissance,” in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, ed. B. D. Cooperman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 186–242.

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of the individual things will be distributed to the ten sefiroth as if every creature were to be attributed to a certain sefirah. There is then a similarity between the sefirotic realm and the lower beings. For the kabbalists, the upper world, namely, the sefiroth, requires human worship in order to function in a perfect way, and this possibility, according to Yehi’el Nissim, is related to the fact that the sefirotic realm is to be conceived as having an anthropomorphic structure. Thus man, by reflecting this structure in his shape, can also influence it by his deeds: a dynamic relationship characteristic of theurgical mysticism. To Yehi’el, the Torah is the light of all other sciences; even if science qua science made possible the knowledge of the causes or the natural hierarchy of things, and thus can be pursued with profit, the source of all real knowledge is the self-sufficient Torah, given that everything is included in brief in its letters, in its vocalization, and in its closed and open passages.10 God’s essence is the paradigm of all existing things and in Him they are conceptualized (literally, drawn) and elaborated in the most perfect manner. When He cognizes His own essence He cognizes all existents other than Himself, since they are all included in His essence as a manifestation that can be actualized in the world. All things preexist in God in a supereminent or superexcellent way. Idel has pointed out that Moscato’s Sermons reveal his general knowledge of the kabbalists, since the preacher often quotes kabbalistic passages, somehow reflecting the spirit of Italian Jewish culture, linked to the allegorical interpretation found, for instance, in the writings of Yohanan Alemanno at the end of the fifteenth century. Idel dedicated several pages to Moscato’s treatment of the nature of God, found in Sermon Sixteen, called The Divine Circle, a theme already present in Sermon Three, and in his later work, the Commentary on Judah Halevi’s Kuzari (Kol Yehudah, Book 4, 25).11 The main simile is the image of the center and the circle. Moscato reveals that some kabbalists drew the first sefirah or Keter in the center as a point within a circle, encompassing all the sefiroth, or surrounding and encompassing the

10 Herbert Davidson, “Medieval Jewish Philosophy in the Sixteenth Century,” in Cooperman, Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, 89–105, states that “Yehi’el’s position on the issue of reason and revelation was the position furthest to the right which a philosopher can take. He brands philosophic science an ‘adversary’ of Scripture, and he warns that the study of philosophy ‘may lead to great damage’” (122). 11 Moshe Idel, “Judah Moscato: A Late Renaissance Jewish Preacher,” in D. B. Ruderman, Preachers of the Italian Ghetto (Berkeley–Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 41–66.

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other sefiroth from outside. Symbolically, Keter12 is referred to as a circle, or as a point that is the circle’s center. Even if Idel confessed not to be acquainted with any kabbalist who described the first sefirah as both the circle and the center, Moscato advocates that the same entity can be defined as being at the same time both the circle and the center, and places them in the definition of God that he quotes: “in Mercurio Trimegisto it is written that the Creator, blessed be He, is a perfect circle,13 whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”14 Moscato displays astonishment that something that is neither a center nor a circumference, is, at the same time, both things, dealing with a well-known definition of God that turns to Christian pseudo-Hermetic sources from the twelfth century, which can be found in the writings of established Christian thinkers of the Renaissance, in particular Nicholas of Cusa.15 Idel believes that to judge from his Italianate (Mercurio) spelling of Hermes Trismegistus, it is not improbable that Moscato quoted from an Italian source. An identical definition is postulated earlier in the same sermon, but is surprisingly linked to another classical definition of God found in some rabbinical sources: The term “makom” is proper to Him, blessed be He, either under the aspect of point or under that of circle. Under the aspect of circle it is proper [to use the term “makom”] because of the resemblance to the supernal circumference (sphere) which is the locus of everything that is placed within it. Under the aspect of point, it is proper because of the resemblance to the center that is like the locus of the supernal sphere, which is not surrounded by anything outside it.16

However, Moscato does not use the Hebrew equivalent to the Latin sfera that occurs in all Christian citations of the above definition. The author seems to have had a circle in mind in order to facilitate the interpretation of the aforementioned Hebrew text that uses the metaphors of circle and center, but not 12 On this sefirah, see Arthur Green, Keter: The Crown of God in Early Jewish Mysticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). 13 As Idel (“Judah Moscato” [1992]) pointed out, the Hebrew iggul (literally, circle) does not fit with the parallel term in most of the Christian texts, which is sfera. 14 Nefuzot Yehudah, 79d, cited in Idel, “Judah Moscato” (1992). 15 Nicholas of Cusa’s main work is On Learned Ignorance (De Docta Ignorantia). On his conception of God as a sphere, see John Hopkins, Nicholas of Cusa’s Metaphysic of Contraction (Minneapolis: The Arthur J. Banning Press, 1983). 16 Nefuzot Yehudah, 79d, cited in Idel, “Judah Moscato” (1992).

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sphere. Therefore, Moscato adapted the non-Jewish source to the Hebrew texts, creating a new version of the pseudo-Hermetic definition of God, so that the sefiroth were depicted as circles and points. Nor does he mention the idea of infinity as it relates to the sphere in most Christian texts, but substitutes it with the idea of perfection. In his analysis of the sefiroth as the finite aspect of the Divine known to human beings, he imposes the supremacy of the Ein Soph (the infinite aspect of the Divinity beyond human knowledge). In his definition of God, Moscato’s efforts seeks to draw His essence as a circle or a point, and this is related to the view of God’s unknowability in Himself, both having a common origin in Neoplatonism. Yet Moscato’s integration of the two definitions is unique. Idel concluded that it is very difficult to assert that Moscato actually believed that the Jewish sources reflected it in identical terms as those of the Hermetic tradition. But the Jewishness of his position can be argued by the way in which, in the same sermon, Moscato declares: “We shall be called the priest of the Lord by our attribution of the simile of the point and circle to the glory of the splendor of God, blessed be He.”17 God referred to as the absolute space is, at the same time, the center and the circle. But He is, for the same reason, also unknowable. In Sermon Three, entitled Fearful in Praises, Moscato cites Berakhot, En’omdin18: A certain (reader) went down before Rabbi Hanina and said: “The great, mighty, terrible, majestic, powerful, awful, strong, fearless, sure and honored God.” He waited for him until he had finished, and when he had finished he said to him “Have you concluded all the praises of your Master? Why do we want all of this? Even with these three that we do say, had not Moses our Master mentioned them in the Torah, and had not the men of the Great Assembly come and inserted them in the Prayer, we should not have been able to mention them; and you say all these and still go on? It is as if a king of flesh and blood had millions of denarii of gold, and people praised him for his silver coins. Would it not be an insult to him?”19

The Lord—Moscato argued, quoting Nehemiah 9:5—is exalted above all blessing and praise. No attribute could be predicated of Him, given that nothing expresses the real nature of His perfection. Attributes are mere shadows cast on 17 Nefuzot Yehuda, 81b, cited in Idel, “Judah Moscato” (1992). 18 Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 33b. 19 Moscato, Sermons, 161. The translation has been modified in part.

Torah and Nature in the Writings of Some Italian Jewish

the earth, as can be inferred from Psalm 102:12, or Job 8:9; even more, a shadow of a shadow20 (Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 122a), for the distance between the attributes that we use and His attributes cannot be bridged. There is not a word in our language or a thought among our ideas that can come close to Him. Moscato continues to state that “attributes can only tell of the righteousness of the influx of the beneficent acts [to which those attributes actually refer] that He brings about for the sake of his creatures.”21 Attributes concern, then, His actions, not His essence, and they merely teach that He is their prime source. Moscato cites Maimonides several times in the same sermon, arguing that the Moreh Nevukhim imparted some wonderful wisdom related to this matter22 in a passage that he links with the abovementioned praise of Rabbi Hanina, and which concludes: “in God, may He be exalted, there is nothing belonging to the same species as the attributes that are regarded by us as perfections, but … all these attributes are deficiencies with regard to God, just as he [Rabbi Hanina] made clear in this parable when he said ‘Would it not be an insult to Him?’”23 Nevertheless, Moscato concedes that the greatest thing about our intellectual faculty is its ability to purify the forms and to abstract and to single out

20 Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 122a. 21 Moscato, Sermons, 162. 22 Concerning Maimonides’s conception of attributes as actions, see Joseph A. Buijs, “Attributes of Action in Maimonides,” Vivarium 27 (1989): 85–102, and Joseph A. Buijs, “The Negative Theology of Maimonides and Aquinas,” Review of Metaphysics 41 (1988): 723–38. See also Joseph A. Buijs, “Is the Negative Theology of Maimonides Intelligible?,” in Torah and Wisdom: Studies in Jewish Philosophy, Kabbalah and Halacha. Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman, ed. R. Link-Salinger (New York: Shengold Publishers Inc., 1992), 9–18. For a more substantial interpretation, see Harry A. Wolfson, “Maimonides on Negative Attributes,” in Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (New York: The American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945), 411–66; Hannah Kasher, “Self-Cognizing Intellect and Negative Attributes in Maimonides’ Theology,” Harvard Theological Review 87 (1994): 461–77; and E. Benor, “Meaning and Reference in Maimonides’ Negative Theo­ logy,” Harvard Theological Review, 88 (1995): 339–60. See also, for a more general survey, David Blumenfeld, “On the Compossibility of the Divine Attributes,” Philosophical Studies 34 (1978): 91–103. 23 Moscato, Sermons, 163. In Moreh Nevukhim, 1:59 Maimonides intends to give the correct interpretation of Rabbi Haninah’s Dictum, the following one: “in God, may He be exalted, there is nothing belonging to the same species as the attributes that are regarded by us as perfections, but … all these attributes are deficiencies with regard to God”; Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, vol. I, translated and with introduction and notes by Schlomo Pines (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963), 143. Moscato repeats Maimonides’s argument literally.

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what is invisible and eminent in God; in so doing, he explains the prophetic vision according to Aristotelian philosophy. It is by means of this very faculty that one can equate, at least metaphorically, a certain form to the Lord, despite all the distinctions to be reckoned with that differentiate the form from its former. This is in accord with the saying of the author of Sefer Yetzirah, chapter 1, item 3: “You should know, consider, imagine, and trace back all things to their Creator, and this restores the Former to His place.”24 The consideration, then, of God, not in His essence, but by means of His actions through creation, gives us the possibility of His knowledge as the place that originates creation, or as the place of creation. According to Sefer Yesirah, God created the world through the combination and permutation of thirty-two paths of wisdom, which included the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the ten Sefiroth (i.e., the ideal, numerical aspect of the spatial-temporal universe). In the Middle Ages, the Sefer Yesirah was viewed as an authentically Jewish interpretation of the created universe, one that not only legitimized the study of natural phenomena by Jews but that also posed an explanation of nature superior to other theories. According to the Sefer Yesirah and its related texts, the person who knows the mysteries of language encoded in creation and revealed in the Torah receives practical benefits. The spiritual energy of the biblical text is deployed for the sake of either altering mundane reality or enhancing God’s power. Names represent the power, being, personality, and substance of that which is named. As Guetta emphasized,25 following Idel, one of the most remarkable points of divergence between Italian kabbalists concerned the nature of the sefiroth—the problem regarding the question of whether or not the sefiroth belong to the divine substance (‘atzmuth). Recanati, the author of an important, esoteric Commentary on the Torah, defines the sefiroth as instruments or receptacles of divine activity, as tools in the hands of an artisan, yet tightly united among themselves and with a single spirit for all, and as such knowable, thereby distinguishing them from the substance of God (the Ein Soph), which remains unknowable. The kabbalistic conception of Torah was incorporated into the Maimonidean tradition in the writings of Yohanan Alemanno, nonetheless acquiring a 24 See Sefer Yesirah, ed. Ithamar Grunewald, “A Preliminary Critical Edition of Sefer Yezira,” Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1971): 132–77. For this book, see further I. Grunewald, “Some Critical Notes on the First Part of Sefer Yezira,” Revue des Études Juives 132: 475–512, and Elliot Wolfson, Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). 25 Alessandro Guetta, “Religious Life and Jewish Erudition in Pisa: Yehiel Nissim da Pisa and the Crisis of Aristotelianism,” in Ruderman and Veltri, Cultural Intermediaries, 86–108.

Torah and Nature in the Writings of Some Italian Jewish

Neoplatonic slant.26 For him the study of nature has to be seen as a hermeneutical activity. Besides, man was created in such a manner that he is like an intermediary between the divine and eternal world as an individual, and between the material and eternal worlds as a species. According to Alemanno, the perfection of man is necessary for the perfection of the lower world, but when the hermeneutical activity is carried out by a kabbalist it is conceived as necessary for the perfect state of the supernal world. In the lengthy preface to his Commentary of the Song of Songs, Hesheq Shlomo, Alemanno indicated that, once the purification of the mind is achieved, it is possible to ascend the various stages of intellection, and carry out operations related to kabbalistic mystical techniques and rituals. The sefirotic realm is considered a Deus Revelatus, and the vocation of the ideal man is to care for the well-being of the cosmic mechanism, standing in an active relationship to all other creatures. In his work, Alemanno returns to the distinction, and illustrates it through the similitude of soul and body—a comparison that can give an idea both of the relationship between invisible cause and visible effects, and of the relationship between God’s unity and the multiplicity of forces ruling the world. The sefiroth are defined as attributes, and are mere instruments, while Ein Soph is the primary cause. Nevertheless, God transmits His spiritual energy (shefa’) and strength to His attributes without undergoing any changes; from there, this transmission of energy descends to the world of the intellects, and thereafter to the spheres, and finally to the sublunar world. All actions that manifest themselves in reality are potentially qualities (middoth) by which God acts. However, they are not separated from God, but rather are united to Him in a total unity that words are incapable of describing. Alemanno considered that the Torah had unique properties, and that the Kabbalah advances instructions in their application. The kabbalists— Alemanno wrote—thought that Moses had precise knowledge of the spiritual world that is called the world of sefiroth, and also knowledge of divine names or the world of letters. Moses knew how to direct his thoughts in order to improve through them, the divine efflux that the kabbalists used to call “channels.” 26 Moscato and other Jewish Renaissance thinkers could have found Neoplatonic considerations in Maimonides’s work. Concerning Maimonides’s Neoplatonism, see Alfred L. Ivry, “Neoplatonic Currents in Maimonides’ Thought,” in Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical Studies, ed. J. Kraemer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 115–40. See also Alfred L. Ivry, “Maimonides and Neoplatonism: Challenge and Response,” in Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought, ed. L. E. Goodman (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 137–56; and K. Seeskin, “Maimonides and Neo-Platonism,” in The Perennial Tradition of Neoplatonism, ed. J. Cleary (Leuven: University of Leuven, 1997), 458–68.

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Moses’s actions caused the channels to emanate upon the lower world in accordance with his will. By means of that efflux, he created anything he wished, just as God created the world by means of various emanations. The emanations descended into the world and created new supranatural things. A prophet also has the power to cause the emanation of divine efflux from Ein Soph upon the hyle (hylic matter) by the intermediacy of the sefirah Malkhut. In this way, the prophet performs wondrous deeds, impossible in nature.27 According to Idel,28 Alemanno was unique among his Jewish intellectual contemporaries in his interest in Neoplatonism, and he states that such thinkers as Eliyah del Medigo, Obadiah Sforno, and David Messer Leon, among others, were all Aristotelians. Alemanno’s writings contain references to Neoplatonic texts that were not translated into Hebrew. It is reasonable to assume therefore that Alemanno knew of these works from his contacts with Renaissance personalities in Florence. Yagel was a kabbalist who followed Alemanno in his new established direction. According to Yagel,29 the sefiroth are the roots and principle for all the powers. They are conceived as ideas and are said to exist in the divine mind. Eternal, they are comprehended in the mind of the Creator and Maker of all. Yagel set aside the dynamic character of the sefiroth—which constitutes one of the principal characteristics of Kabbalah. He returned to a completely philosophical approach, reminiscent of Philo’s formulation. They are, therefore, emanated, and all of them unite together in Him. Azariah of Rossi also pointed out the similarity between the terms “sefirah” and “idea.”30 27 Concerning Alemanno’s view on God and Nature, see Fabrizio Lelli, “L’educazione ebraica nella seconda metà del ‘400. Poetica e scienza naturali nel Hay ha-Olamin di Yohanan Alemanno,” Rinascimento 36 (1996): 75–136. This work has been partly translated into Italian by Lelli: Yohanan Alemanno, Hay ha-‘olamin (L’immortale). Parte I. La retorica, edited with Introduction and notes by F. Lelli (Florence: Olschki, 1995). 28 See Idel, Kabbalah in Italy (2011), c. 14. 29 See his Beit Ya’ar ha-Levanon (House of the Forest of Lebanon). MSS Oxford, Bodleian Reggio 8–10, listed as nos. 1303–5 in A. Neubaner, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1886, 1906). 30 Azariah de Rossi, The Light of the Eyes (Me’or Enayim), translated from Hebrew with an introduction and annotation by Joanna Weinberg (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001). The arguments for the similarity are in Part Three, Section One, Chapter Four, p. 115, where Azariah of Rossi quotes Philo’s statement in On the Creation of the World, and comments: “He resembles a skilled craftsman who first conceived the model of the entire building and transforms his mental image and likeness into concrete existence… . Thus in the beginning … He caused the world of the intellect (I believe that the Kabbalists call it the world of emanations and sefiroth) to emanate through, but not independent of, His intellect, and from it

Torah and Nature in the Writings of Some Italian Jewish

As Ruderman31 pointed out, Yagel expressed a great enthusiasm for the study of the minutest aspects of God’s creation, the hidden divine secrets inside the most insignificant things of nature. Verification of God’s revelation through nature is perhaps the underlying message of Yagel’s entire work. He calls this composition of natural history “the opening of hope,” as if he wished to suggest that his age and his generation had been blessed in undue proportion with marvelous opportunities to unveil God’s secrets in nature. As Ruderman claimed: to the seeker of knowledge of the divine world, there is no clear distinction between visible works of God on the surface of the world and those on the pages of a divine text. In either case, whether seen in nature or read in the pages of ancient books, these signs reveal to the persistent decoder the same eternal truths. Since language partakes of the same network of similitudes and signs, it must be studied as nature is studied.32

Concerning the attributes usually ascribed to God when we state that He is living, we actually have two different aims: the first is to point out the dissemination of the perfection of the vital force descending from Him to the creature— and here Moscato admits a link between them—and the second is to elevate us to such an intellectual level that we may grasp both the fact that He is the first principle of that very vital force flowing forth, and the truth inherent in the negation of any lack in Him. God, therefore, can be called Nature inasmuch as He is the first principle of that perfect vital force that lies beneath every creature, or, as Moscato wrote in his Kol Yehuda, I, §76, “He, blessed be He, is called Nature truly … since He is impressing all the natures of the creatures with His signet.”33

was established the whole of the sensible world in its time and part by part.” Cf. also Joanna Weinberg, “The Beautiful Soul: Azariah de Rossi’s Search for Truth,” in Ruderman and Veltri, Cultural Intermediaries, 109–26. 31 See David B. Ruderman, “Unicorns, Great Beasts and the Marvelous Variety of Things in Nature in the Thought of Abraham b. Hananiah Yagel,” in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, ed. I. Twersky and B. Septimus (Cambridge, MA–London: Harvard University Press, 1987), 343–64. See also David. B. Ruderman, Kabbalah, Magic and Science: The Cultural Universe of a Sixteenth-Century Physician (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). Ruderman is also the translator of Yagel’s Gei Hizzayon; see Abraham ben Hananiah Yagel, A Valley of Vision: The Heavenly Journal of Abraham ben Hananiah Yagel, translation from Hebrew with an introduction and commentary by David B. Ruderman (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990). 32 Ruderman, “Unicorns, Great Beasts,” 357. 33 Cited in Idel, “Deus sive natura,” 98.

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His diverse actions proceed (as already illustrated in the Moreh Nevukhim) from one simple essence in which no multiplicity is posited, and to which no notion is superadded (Moreh Nevukhim 1:53).34 The One, nevertheless, being the true One, is “the All,”35 and this is the reason why every perfection that is found in His creatures is attributed to Him, namely, because their blessed source pours down and emanates all perfection. And yet, nothing can express His true essence. Moscato wrote in Sermon Three: “we can draw an analogy between Him … and the indivisible point, from which derive the line, the plane and the solid, which are characterized respectively by length, width, and depth. For no place is empty and void of the point, which indeed includes, in potential [p. 304] all geometrical figures.”36 And, concerning His Oneness, “God is great in the multiplication of His attributes; and, still, it remains beyond our knowledge how, despite all multiplication, He keeps His unity absolutely perfect.”37 However, Moses and the men of the Great Assembly established that three attributes relate to the Lord—namely, “great,” “mighty,” and “fearful”—in order to indicate that He is the source of all perfections, which are emanated from Him. Indeed, these three attributes represent three supreme categories that subsume all perfections, which … can in turn be subsumed into the three categories of knowledge, omnipotence and will … “great” indicates knowledge, for nothing is as great as knowledge and wisdom; “mighty” indicates omnipotence; and “fearful” indicates will. For, if one does not operate with will and purpose, then the fear of Him will not be cast upon those who are other than Him.38

In conclusion, Moscato states that a great part of the abundance of the grace and goodness of the Lord becomes visible by being bestowed on us by way of a 34 Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, Volume One. In I:53 we read: “Now you know that the notion of knowledge in reference to Him … is identical with the notion of life, for everyone who apprehends his own essence possesses both life and knowledge by virtue of the same things. For we wished to signify by ‘knowledge’ the apprehension of one’s own essence. Now the essence that apprehends is undoubtedly the same as the essence that is apprehended. For … He is not composed of two things, the thing that apprehends and another thing that does not apprehend … His essence is … one and simple, having no notion that is superadded to it in any respect. This essence has created everything that it has created and knows it, but absolutely not by virtue of a superadded notion” (122–3). 35 In Moscato’s Sermon Nine. See Moscato, Sermons, 304. 36 Ibid., 171. 37 Ibid., 175. 38 Ibid., 178.

Torah and Nature in the Writings of Some Italian Jewish

number of activities brought forth by Him, each according to a specific property and attribute. In this way, Creatorhood and Creator are two modes of viewing, not two distinct ontological realities.39 As Bettan40 argued many years ago, Moscato imported to the thought of his day a new emphasis and clarity, and may be described as a philosophic preacher. In his sermons, the external world, in its manifold relations, comes under his scrutinizing gaze, giving to it a meaning in consonance with its high origin and sacred uses. God’s wisdom and power are reflected in nature and in a man’s life, so that when we study nature we are in quest of God. In fact, only such knowledge of God can kindle in us the pure love of God; true piety is the attainment of the recognition of God’s power in the world, even if “God is in heaven and you on earth, therefore should your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:1). Every man is obliged to search for the evidence of God in nature to the fullest extent of his intellectual powers. Nevertheless, secular knowledge alone is incapable of leading us to the highest truth—God—for it deals with things that, despite their practical importance, are essentially evanescent. The Torah alone and the life it prescribes can endow us with wings to fly unto God, as Moscato writes in Sermon Thirteen. The weapons of philosophy, at best, may only support the position of religion, defending its conclusions and vindicating its doctrines: they cannot safeguard the sacred source from whence all true religion ultimately flows. Reason is powerless to support and guide us when we are grasping in the dark: we need a light from above, a higher aid, to illumine our path, as taught in Sermon Nine, entitled Microcosm.41 God, the absolute unity, may be likened again to the indivisible point at the center of the circle, whose radii represent human souls in their striving after union with Him. We can unite with the absolute One through the harmonization of the spiritual forces within us, such as the Torah alone is able to effect. By the aid of the Torah, we attain perfect harmony in our inner life, and in our relationship with those about 39 In Moscato’s Sermon Nine, the preacher writes: “the Creator … is in some manner all of the existents … or as the Aristotelian philosophers have said, in His active knowledge, which is He himself … were and are present all of the existents, their order and their regularity, their behavior and their existence. And if it is so, then He is, in some manner, all of the existents” (ibid., 303). 40 Israel Bettan, “The Sermons of Judah Moscato,” Hebrew Union College Annual 6 (1929, 1987): 297–326. 41 Moscato quotes Psalm 68:2 and Isaiah 11:9 in this sermon: “He … loads on them most on His grace and salvation in order to make them understand in a perfect way… . There is no escape from effort and this weakness of thinking until the Redeemer comes. For then the crown will return to its former state of glory, and the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord… . (This will be) in order to understand and to comprehend, and to serve the Creator, may He be blessed; for that is the purpose of the creation of man. Then man will rise to the level of being all-comprehensive, and he will truthfully be called a ‘microcosm’” (Moscato, Sermons, 341).

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us we become spiritual entities, as God is in essence. Moscato argues that behind the written word of the Torah there is a secret meaning. According to Bettan,42 this is not a denial to mankind of the privilege of coming to God by means of the intellect, and he quotes Moscato’s Sermon One: “Who, with eyes raised heavenward, toward sun, moon, and stars, impressed with the order and regularity of their movements and with the beneficent effects produced on all things, can fail to affirm that a wise God is directing their course?”43 Bettan concludes: “It is within man’s power to plumb the depths of the Infinite.”44 But what Moscato vindicated here was the harmonic relations between created things,45 and, in our opinion, Moscato believed that in His essence God is unknowable.46 Nevertheless, every man is obliged to search for the evidence of God in nature, as a result of his action, or as his action understood strictu sensu. As Twersky47 indicates, the sixteenth century saw an increasing number of statements, especially among kabbalists, that meta-halakhic pursuits were superior to halakhic pursuits in the attainment of human perfection. Moscato never makes such a claim. But even if, in his Sermons and his Commentary on the Kuzari, Moscato often stresses the importance of action, and in fact declares this to be the central thesis of Halevi’s work, at the same time his work is dominated by a concern for the meta-halakhic realm. It is in this sense that, in his eulogy for Moscato, Katzenellenbogen48 42 Israel Bettan, Studies in Jewish Preaching: Middle Ages (Cincinnati: Brown Classics in Judaica, 1939), 216. 43 In Bettan, “The Sermons of Judah Moscato,” 216. 44 Quoted in Bettan, ibid., 216. 45 In this sense, the translation offered by Miletto and Veltri shows that Moscato’s argument is not linked to the possibility of apprehending God’s essence: “Who could lift his eyes to the heavens and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the heavenly host, their arrangement and alignment and the determination of the arrangement of their movements and the state of appearance of their sparks—from [all of] which the visible activities, salutary and significant, are drawn and influenced—and could refuse, at that very moment, to respond, by necessity, with ‘amen,’ for in wisdom, reason and knowledge, from the Lord, their paces were founded on perfect harmonic relations and ratios, and so on with many [other] examples?” (Moscato, Sermons, 70). 46 As can be read in Sermon Three, the “attributes’ true meaning is hidden from the eyes of every living being” (ibid., 178), and all that scholars have said about Him and attributed to Him was only meant in a rhetorical and poetic manner. 47 Isadore Twersky, “Talmudists, Philosophers, Kabbalists,” in Cooperman, Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, 431, 460. 48 Concerning this and other eulogies, see Elliot Horowitz, “Speaking of the Dead: The Emergence of the Eulogy among Italian Jewry in the Sixteenth Century,” in Preachers of the Italian Ghetto (Berkeley–Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 129–62. See also Cecil Roth, The Jews in the Renaissance (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1959).

Torah and Nature in the Writings of Some Italian Jewish

appears to have mildly criticized the former’s emphasis on speculative rather than halakhic matters. Moscato’s Kol Yehuda was published in 1594, but there is evidence that the work was in wide circulation earlier. In his sermons, published in 1589, Moscato often cites his Commentary. As Shear affirms, “Moscato was an anti-rationalist for the same reason as Halevi, Jewish revelation represents the ultimate truth while every source of knowledge comes up short.”49 But Barzilay50 errs when he considers Moscato to be an Italian version of Halevi. Idel explicitly places his view of Moscato’s thought in opposition to Barzilay, and also takes issue with two other views on his thought, those of Herbert Davidson51 and Joseph Dan.52 Davidson argued in an impressive paper and in his study of the fifteenth-century Spanish Jewish philosopher Abraham Schalom, that medieval Jewish philosophy died an unnoted death as a result of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.53 Idel does not share this claim, given that it ignores or downplays the developments of Jewish philosophy that did take place in the sixteenth century, including Moscato’s Sermons. Dan believes that Moscato was deeply influenced by Renaissance humanism, especially in his emphasis on classical rhetoric, even though he admits that Moscato occasionally quoted kabbalistic sources, and used rabbinic texts as well as philosophical ones. Idel concludes, without error, that Moscato was influenced by classical non-Jewish texts but, at the same time, that most of his thought derived from rabbinic and medieval Jewish sources.54 We can state therefore that Moscato’s philosophy does not necessarily work against the spiritual striving toward God through action. 49 Adam Shear, Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 143. Cf. also Adam Shear, “Judah Moscato’s Scholarly Self-Image and the Question of Jewish Humanism,” in Ruderman and Veltri, Cultural Intermediaries, 106–26. 50 Isaac E. Barzilay, Between Reason and Faith. Anti-rationalism in Italian Jewish Thought 1250–1650 (The Hague–Paris: Mouton, 1967). 51 See Herbert A. Davidson, The Philosophy of Abraham Schalom: A Fifteenth-Century Exposition and Defense of Maimonides (Berkeley–Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983, 1964). 52 Joseph Dan, “‘No Evil Descends from Heaven’—Sixteenth-Century Jewish Concepts of Evil,” in Cooperman, Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, 89–105. Idel argues that Dan neglected the complex nature of the Sermons’ context, and that it is reasonable to maintain that only Jewish intellectuals were capable of grasping the many diverse sources that Moscato used. 53 Davidson considers that Moscato’s treatment of the subject of the emanation of the universe was superficial and eclectic. 54 Nevertheless, Idel, “Judah Moscato” (1992), admits that in several aspects Moscato is closer to Pico Della Mirandola’s esoteric views than to any of his Jewish medieval and Renaissance predecessors.

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CHAPTER 11

Prenuptial Agreements in Ketubot from Italy* YOEL SHILOH

C

hazal ruled that the ketubah for a virgin bride is valued at two hundred zuzim (one hundred zuzim for a widow), ‫כדי שלא תהא קלה בעיניו להוציא‬, and so that the wife would have this money to live on after the cessation of the marriage. The groom may increase the amount of two hundred zuzim as much as he wishes, or as much as he and the parents of the bride have agreed. Over the generations, additional financial practices gradually were introduced, such as an addition of one-third, an additional dowry, etc. According to the law of the Torah, a man inherits his wife, and sons inherit their father (i.e., a woman does not inherit anything, except in the event that the deceased is survived by daughters only, as in the case of the daughters of Zelophehad). Chazal added a number of regulations, takkanot, to the inheritance laws such as ‫ כתובת בנין דכרין‬and child support to daughters, etc. Throughout the ages, different communities have added many more regulations to the inheritance laws, including shtar chatzi-zachar and shtar zachar shalem. These regulations are typically part of major collections of regulations, such as Takkanot Shum, Castilia, and Fes and the regulations of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel in the year 5710. Monetary regulations typically were written into the ketubah, even though these regulations were binding even without being written. For example, the ancient Moroccan ketubot had ‫ כמנהג המגורשים‬added (i.e., according to the Castilian regulations, which the expelled Jews from Spain had brought with them) or ‫( כמנהג התושבים‬i.e., according to what was acceptable before the expelled * I am grateful to the Museum of Italian Jewish Art in Jerusalem, the National Library of Israel, Mr. Moshe Rosenfeld, and Bill Gross, for their permission to use some of the items in their possession.

Prenuptial Agreements in Ketubot from Italy

Jews arrived in Morocco). The new Moroccan ketubot have added ‫כתקנת רבני‬ ‫המועצה המרוקנית שתקנו בשנת ה›תש"י‬, contemporary Sephardic ketubot in Israel have ‫ הירושה כפי ההסכמה הנהוגה בעיר הקודש ירושלים ת"ו‬added, whereas contemporary Ashkenazi ketubot in Israel have ‫ כמנהג אשכנז ועל פי תקנות שו"ם‬added. Similar additions apply to the ketubot of other Jewish communities around the world. In Italy, it was customary for the families of the wedded couple to reach a private agreement on financial issues ahead of the wedding, such as the amount of the dowry, monetary additions in the ketubah, and the inheritance. These agreements either were written into the ketubah or were appended to it. If appended, the ketubah mentioned the existence of this appendix, and the appendix itself was signed by a notary and received the status of an official and binding contract. In this paper, we will examine the trend of marriage agreements drawn up​​ in addition to the ketubah. These agreements were reached among Jewish families during the marriage ceremony itself. They were made in accordance with Italian civil law, and were drawn up in the presence of qualified notaries. At a later period, a reference to these marriage agreements was incorporated into the ketubah itself. Chazal instituted the ketubah for the protection of women.1 A ketubah is a legal document, a contract between a bride and groom. In practice, the ketubah is a one-sided commitment, meaning that all clauses of the ketubah exclusively obligate the groom. Some of these obligations are monetary while some are nonmonetary. The witnesses signed on the ketubah testify that the groom asked for the bride’s hand in marriage, and that she accepted his marriage proposal. This marriage agreement establishes several commitments instituted by Chazal. In addition to the binding commitments in accordance with the regulations of the ketubah, there are also additional commitments that the groom undertakes of his own free will. These additional commitments are often the result of negotiations between the families of the wedded couple. The text of the ketubah that is used today has existed for about a thousand years. In general, the structure and wording of the clauses of the ketubah are standard and uniform. However, the wording of individual ketubot differs. Sometimes these differences are small and insignificant, but sometimes far-reaching meanings are concealed behind a slight change in wording. These changes are characteristic of certain communities or certain periods in time. In some cases, certain Jewish communities have added a sentence or a number of 1 Mishna, tractate Ketubot, chap. A, Mishna B. Talmud Bavli tractate Ketubot, p. 82, column B.

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words to the wording of the ketubah, and, in other cases, a number of words or phrases have been changed or omitted. Very often, these changes were the result of local regulations or practices of the community. Sometimes a change in wording indicates a social trend or development within a community. In this article, I intend to follow the specific development of the ketubah of Jewish women in Italy. A study of Italian ketubot reveals that a significant number of these ketubot contain the addition of specific phrases or sentences pertaining to a civil legal document that supplements the ketubah. This specific addition only appears in ketubot from Italy of the last three hundred years. The dates on Italian ketubot reveal that this addition was introduced originally with discretion, but it gradually spread to such an extent that in the last hundred years there is almost no Italian ketubah that does not contain this addition. For example, the following paragraph appears in a ketubah from Rome, 1871:2 ‫ודין נדוניא דהנעלת ליה מבי אבוה ששה ועשרים אלף ושמונה מאות וחמישה‬ ‫ושבעים לירי ממטבע איטלקי ממעות מחושבים לבר מתכשיטי נשים כנראה בשטר הנעשה‬ ‫( באופציו של באקיטי‬translation from Aramaic, “This is the dowry that comes down to the groom from the house of the bride”). There is reference here to a shtar—‫שטר הנעשה באופיציו של באקיטי‬. References to shtars such as the one mentioned here are characteristic of Italian ketubot. In this case, the shtar refers to a legal document drawn up in the office of a Mr. Bakitti, prior to or during the writing of the ketubah. Mr. Bakitti, who is mentioned in the marriage contract, was probably a well-known notary in Rome at the time of these marriages. The families of the wedded couple drew up a shtar in Mr. Bakitti’s office during the writing of the ketubah. The ketubah does not detail the contents of this shtar. Nevertheless, it is clear that it specifies a list of the dowry the bride brought into the marriage. Moreover, it is likely that the dowry list includes not only the details of each item of the dowry but also the monetary value of each item or the overall value of the dowry. We may therefore assume that Mr. Bakitti served not only as a notary but also as a kind of property appraiser. In the abovementioned document, his authorization of the appraisal is official and binding. Throughout the generations, it has been acceptable in all Jewish communities around the world to include in the ketubah details of the dowry and its monetary value. A dowry is, in effect, the assets that the bride brings from her father into the marriage. Chazal regulated that these assets are to be at the disposal of the husband to assist him in earning a living,3 ‫הבעל אוכל פירות‬4. The 2 No. 0383 in the Rosenfeld collection. 3 Talmud Bavli, tractate Ketubot, p. 47, column B.

Prenuptial Agreements in Ketubot from Italy

capital of the dowry, however, remains in the possession of the wife. In the event of the cessation of marriage—by either death or divorce—the husband or his heir(s) are obligated to repay the dowry to the wife in the amount of its monetary value on the wedding day. Chazal called this debt ‫נכסי צאן ברזל‬.4 The precise details of the dowry and its monetary value were written into the ketubah to ensure that the husband would return its real value. The drawing up of a legal document between the wedded couple in addition to the ketubah is a familiar trend. Nowadays, such a document is known as a prenuptial agreement. The content of contemporary prenuptial agreements is not fixed, and often reflects the personal wishes of the couple. Generally, these agreements include first and foremost the moral obligations between the couple to live a life of love and mutual respect. Very often, contemporary prenuptial agreements include an agreement on the division of joint property in the event that the marriage is dissolved. Today, the signing of a prenuptial agreement is customary in second marriages or marriages in later life, because these couples usually come into the marriage with considerable assets. Nowadays, there are rabbis who encourage such agreements5 because they believe that it adds stability to the marriage and that in the event of divorce the settlement is easier for both sides, compared to cases where there is no prenuptial agreement. There is a halakhic question as to whether it is permissible to sign a prenuptial agreement in addition to a ketubah.6 The debate over this issue stems from the fact that the writing of a ketubah is a halakhic ordinance instituted by Chazal, and that the ketubah itself represents a prenuptial agreement. Therefore, from a halakhic standpoint, an additional prenuptial agreement may indicate that the couple does not regard the ketubah as the binding legal agreement that Chazal intended it to be. An improper attitude toward the ketubah may disqualify it, and the couple will be married without a truly halakhic ketubah.7 According to halakhah, it is forbidden for a married couple to live together without a ketubah. If a ketubah is lost, destroyed, or irretrievable for whatever reason, a second ketubah is written and signed—‫כתובה דאירכסא‬.8 Indeed, as 4 Mishna tractate Yevamot, Chap. 7, Mishna A. Talmud Bavli, tractate Ketubot, p. 101, column A. 5 Rabbi Elyashiv Knohl, “The Marriage Covenant: A Guide to Jewish Marriage,” Techumin 21 (Alon Shvut, 5761): 324–39. 6 Rabbi Shlomo Dichovsky, “Monetory Prenuptial Agreements,” Techumin 21 (Alon Shvut, 5761): 279–87. 7 Talmud Bavli, Masechet tractate Bava Kama, p. 89, column A. 8 Rambam, Laws of Matrimony, Chap. 10, halakhah 10.

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aforementioned, there are rabbis who permit and even encourage the preparation of a prenuptial agreement under the assumption that such an agreement does not contradict the ketubah but rather constitutes an addition to it. In any event, one has to be very careful in the wording of the prenuptial agreement to ensure that it does not contradict the ketubah and take priority over it. In cases where there is a prenuptial agreement in addition to the ketubah—the ketubah represents the main contract and the prenuptial agreement acts as a supplement to the ketubah and is secondary to it. Prenuptial agreements of the Jews of Italy date back around three hundred years. These civil legal documents were drawn up and signed in the presence of a lawyer or notary. It appears that the notaries or lawyers who drew up these agreements were not necessarily Jewish, and there was probably not much difference between the documents in question and the prenuptial agreements drawn up by non-Jewish couples. These legal documents are mentioned explicitly in the body of the ketubah. It is evident that these legal documents were binding, and that they carried greater legal weight than the ketubah. In fact, it is evident that those who formulated the ketubot regarded the ketubah as secondary to the legal document mentioned in it. In the past, marriage was not just between the groom and the bride but also between the groom and the bride’s family. The parents often chose a marriage partner for their children without consulting them or involving them in the decision. Parents who wanted with all hearts the best outcome for their children saw it as their duty to find suitable marriage partners for their children and marry them off. The fact that the marriage was the decision of the couple’s parents and not the decision of the couple themselves was related also to the young age of the couple. However, certain communities abandoned this practice over a hundred years ago. Marriage is usually the couple’s decision today, and the couple informs their parents only after they decide to marry. In the past, the parents’ marriage decision was always accompanied by preliminary negotiations that took place between the families. The marriage would take place only after successful negotiations. Marriage stories in the Bible refer to the marriage negotiations between the families prior to the wedding. There are also references to such negotiations taking place during the time of Chazal, and this practice has continued over the generations to the present day. The preliminary negotiations preceding the wedding would end with points of agreement. It is likely that these remained oral agreements and, therefore, we have no way of knowing their details. In those cases where the outcome of the negotiations was written down, their details were incorporated into the ketubah. Even

Prenuptial Agreements in Ketubot from Italy

though the ketubah is a rabbinical ordinance, only9 ‫עיקר כתובה‬10 is a halakhic obligation. The remainder of the ketubah, or most of it, consists of clauses that are the result of private negotiations between the families. Although Chazal added more regulations known as ‫ תנאי בית דין‬that should be written into the ketubah, these regulations obligate the husband even if they are not written into the ketubah.10 This means that the main part of the ketubah is actually those clauses that are not halakhic obligations but rather private agreements reached in preliminary negotiations between the families. Nowadays, the additional clauses of the ketubah have lost their original meaning as a result of the private agreement between the parties to the marriage. The cause for this change is the fact that most of the ketubot used today are preprinted copies, so that their wording has become standard and uniform. In preparing this standard wording, the printing house leaves only a few empty spaces to be filled in, according to the specific marriage making use of this ketubah. Hence, the various clauses of the agreement that existed in the past have been “frozen,” as it were, and have remained in the wording of today’s ketubot. We can see evidence of this in the modern ketubot used by the various rabbinates in Israel today. There are differences between the ketubot defined as “Ashkenazi,” “Sephardic,” and “Yemenite.” Further, a comparison between the standard ketubot used in the rabbinates of different cities shows the differences between the ketubot. Even the same local rabbinate occasionally changes the wording of the ketubah over the years. It seems that changes in the wording of ketubot are often an afterthought and are not necessarily the result of prior consideration and judgment on the part of a rabbi or scholar at the rabbinate. In order to determine the period in Italy when the trend of signing a notarized document began, we need to refer to the early ketubot. In a ketubah from Ancona, 1767,11 there is no mention of a supplementary notarized document. It is of course possible that such a document did indeed exist since ‫לא ראינו לא שמענו—אינה ראיה‬. However, in the ketubah in question, there is no reference to this document. The absence of this reference has been acceptable in all communities and in all ketubot of the Jewish people to this day. In order to argue this trend, we will examine a ketubah from Tel Aviv, 1957.12 About a third of the wording in the ketubah is a clause that deals with additional 9 10 11 12

Talmud Bavli, tractate Ketubot, p. 89, column A. Mishna, tractate Ketubot, Chap. d, Mishnayot g-l. No. k0251 in the National Library collection. No. 0341 in the Rosenfeld collection.

219

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terms and is not part of the ‫ עיקר הכתובה‬or the halakhic regulations that the ketubah is required to contain. The following is the wording of the additional terms:13 ‫ מעשי‬:‫ ואלו הם‬.‫התנאים שהתנו ביניהם שרירין וקיימין כתנאי בני גד ובני ראובן‬ ‫ הירושה כפי ההסכמה‬,‫יפו‬-‫אביב‬-‫ הדירה פה תל‬,‫ידיה לו מזונה וכל צרכה עליו‬ ‫ ולא ישא ולא ישדך ולא יקדש שום אשה‬,‫הנהוגה בעיר הקודש ירושלם תבנה ותכונן‬ ‫אחרת עליה בחיה אלא אם כן שהתה עמו עשר שנים רצופות ולא ילדה לו זרע של‬ ‫ ולא ימכור ולא ימשכן שום חפץ מחפציה כי אם ברשותה ורצונה‬,‫קימא חס ושלום‬ ‫ ולא יפתינה ולא יסיתנה שתמחול לו סכי כתובתה לא כלה ולא מקצתה‬,‫הטוב והגמור‬ ‫ הרי המחילה ההיא בטלה מעכשיו כחרס‬- ‫ ואם תמחול‬,‫ולא שום תנאי מתנאי הכתובה‬ ‫ ולא יעבור מארם צובא והלאה ולא מנא אמון והלאה‬,‫הנשבר וכדבר שאין בו ממש‬ ‫ולא בדרך ים כלל ועיקר עד שיניח לה גט כריתות עם סיפוק מזונותיה כפי ראות עיני‬ .‫בית דין הצדק יכבד בציון‬

Since this long list of terms was incorporated into preprinted copies of the standard version of the ketubah, it is very clear that it is not the result of negotiations between the families. This version existed long before the couple chose this ketubah, and all couples who married through this rabbinate during the same period used this identical ketubah. This version includes clauses that are clearly irrelevant today. We will select and explain just a few of these irrelevant clauses. • In this ketubah the groom undertakes ‫לא ישא ולא ישדך ולא יקדש שום‬ ‫אשה אחרת עליה בחיה אלא אם כן שהתה עמו עשר שנים רצופות ולא ילדה‬ ‫לו זרע של קימא חס ושלום‬. This undertaking is unnecessary and irrelevant for the groom, because it contradicts the ban against polygamy by Rabbeinu Gershom Meor Ha-Golah as well as the ruling of the Chief Rabbinate Council in its 5710 regulations. It also goes without saying that it contradicts the laws of the State of Israel. • In this ketubah the groom undertakes ‫שהוא לא יעבור מארם צובא והלאה‬ ‫ולא מנא אמון והלאה ולא בדרך ים כלל ועיקר עד שיניח לה גט כריתות עם סיפוק‬ ‫מזונותיה כפי ראות עיני בית דין הצדק‬. There is no logic to the groom’s obligation not to leave the country without the consent of his wife. In addition, this obligation indicates the boundaries of Israel through which the husband must not pass without the consent of his wife as the city of Aleppo (Aram-Zodah) in northern Syria and the city of Alexandria (Na-Amon) in western Egypt. 13 In the quotation, punctuation has been added, and abbreviations have been explained.

Prenuptial Agreements in Ketubot from Italy

Today, the additional terms incorporated into the ketubah are not the result of negotiations between the families. This is observed distinctly in the ketubah shown in Photograph 3, as well as in virtually every printed ketubah. Clearly, if a couple marries through the rabbinate with a preprinted ketubah, the additional terms mentioned in it are in effect a relic of an era when it was customary for the families to stipulate the terms of the marriage. In the past, the additional terms were undoubtedly the result of a real agreement between the families. This is not only true for the Jews of Italy but for all Jewish communities worldwide. Further evidence of this can be seen in a ketubah from Padua, 1718.14 A third of its text is an addition to the standard text of the ketubah, and the entire text, including the special additions, is handwritten. The following is the wording of the additional terms: ‫ועל סך הנדוניא הנ"ל נכנסו ערבים קבלנים המפואר כמ"ר ידידיה הלוי אחי החתן‬ ‫הנ"ל והאלמנה הכבודה מר"ת בונה מב"ת אמם זה הו פרינציפאלי ואינטולידום זולתי‬ ‫שמרת בונה הנ"ל התנית תנאי גמור ככל תיקוני חז"ל שמשיירת כח לעצמה בעד‬ ‫מאתים דוקאטי מעות מחושבים באופן שאם תבא מרת ברוניטה הנ"ל או יורשיה וב"כ‬ ‫לידי גביית נדונייתה הנ"ל תטול מרת בונה הנ"ל תחלה מן העיסה ותגבה סך המאתים‬ ‫דוקאטי הנ"ל מכח קדימת נדונייתה בבית המנוח כמ"ר זרח ז"ל בעלה ואחר כך תגבה‬ ‫מרת ברוניטה הנ"ל או יורשיה וב"כ כל סך נדונייתה משלם ובתנאי הזה הוא שנכנסה‬ .‫מרת בונה הנ"ל ערבות קבלנית ולא באופן אחר‬

A study of the wording of these additional terms embedded into the ketubah indicates that they are the result of negotiations. During these prenuptial negotiations, the bride’s family demanded that the groom provide guarantees. These guarantees stipulated that the wife would be able to take back the dowry assets should it become necessary. As explained above, the assets in question are ‫נכסי‬ ‫צאן ברזל‬. This means that at the cessation of the marriage, in the event of divorce or death, the husband or his heirs are obligated to return the dowry to the wife according to its value on the day of matrimony. Chazal ruled as halakhah15 ‫אם פיחתו—פיחתו לו‬, meaning that even if the value of the dowry declines over the years, the loss is the husband’s. This ketubah indicates that even before the wedding day of this particular couple, the issue of a guarantee to return the dowry assets at their full value already had been raised. This ketubah also 14 No. 0461 in the Museum of Italian Jewish Art collection. 15 This is the wording of the standard ketubah according to the Talmud Bavli, tractate Bava Kama, p. 102, column B.

221

222

Part Two    The Middle Ages and the Renaissance

indicates that the groom’s father was no longer alive at the time of the marriage. It was therefore agreed and stipulated in the ketubah that should the groom or his heirs fail to return the dowry to the wife, the groom’s brother and mother would be responsible for returning it. A conditional clause was added to the terms of this guarantee, thus limiting it: the widowed mother of the groom accepted the guarantee on condition that she would not be committed to relinquish all her property to pay back the dowry. Whatever the outcome, she would remain with 200 ducats. The terms of the guarantee in this ketubah were formulated in legal jargon. They contain a phrase which at the time was used in Italian civil law ‫פרינציפאלי ואינדולידום‬, meaning a basic comprehensive guarantee. Here, it was decided that the family of the groom would be guarantor of the dowry bound by this specific type of guarantee, but with a private and local change that limited the ‫פרינציפאלי ואינדולידום‬. In this case, a private legal agreement between the families was incorporated into the ketubah without mention of a supplementary civil document. Another example can be found in a ketubah from Ancona, 1722,16 which contains an added clause in Italian at the bottom. The body of the ketubah contains the following details of the dowry: ‫ודן נדוניא דהנעלת ליה מבי אבוה שבע מאות סקודי לערך עשרה פאוולי הסקודו‬ ‫היינו ארבע מאות סקודי כנ"ל בכ"כ מעות מחושבים ומאה סקודי כנ"ל בכ"כ עדיי‬ ‫זהב ומרגליות ומאתים סקודי כנ"ל בכ"כ בגדי צמר ופשתן ומשי ותכשיטי נשים‬ ‫ושמושי ערש וצבי כה"ר שלמה הנ"ל והוסיף לה מן דיליה ממוניה על המהר הנ"ל‬ ‫ נמצא סכום כתובתא דא בין נדוניא ותוספא שמנה מאות‬.‫מאה וארבעים סקודי כנ"ל‬ ‫ לבר ממאתן זוזי דחזו לה דאינון עקר הכתובה וכמו שיתבאר‬,‫וארבעים סקודי כנל‬ .‫עוד באר היטב בשטר נצרי שיעשה ביניהם‬

Here it is stated explicitly that the details referred to in the ketubah are actually just a summary of the dowry because there is another ‫ שטר נוצרי‬that describes the dowry in greater detail. This ‫ שטר נוצרי‬refers to a future event—‫בשטר נצרי‬ ‫שיעשה ביניהם‬. This indicates that at the time of writing the ketubah, the ‫שטר‬ ‫ נוצרי‬had not yet been drawn up, or at least had not yet been signed. The term ‫ שטר נוצרי‬refers to a legal document written in Italian, or possibly Latin. There are also ketubot that make reference to a ‫( שטר עברי‬i.e., an appended document written in Hebrew). 16 No. 093 in the Gross collection.

‫‪223‬‬

‫‪Prenuptial Agreements in Ketubot from Italy‬‬

‫‪A ketubah from Pisa, 1796,17 contains a two-column document with the‬‬ ‫‪ketubah appearing in the right-hand column. This ketubah is the standard and‬‬ ‫‪accepted version used in the Jewish Diaspora. Conversely, the left-hand column‬‬ ‫‪contains a long and detailed agreement between the families of the bride and‬‬ ‫‪groom. At the bottom of the right-hand column under the ketubah, there is a‬‬ ‫‪lengthy addition in Italian. The following are the contents of the agreement in‬‬ ‫‪the left-hand column, which go into great length (the underscores appear in the‬‬ ‫‪original):‬‬ ‫התנאים שהתנו ביניהם החתן המפואר יקר ומאד נעלה כה"ר יצחק י"ץ בר כבוד‬ ‫ה"ה המנוח כה"ר משה מרדכי אורבייטו נ"ע והכלה הבתולה הכבודה והצנועה מרת‬ ‫דונא רחל מב"ת בת כבוד ה"ה היקר הנכבד נשא ומאד נעלה כה"ר יצחק בונדי י"ץ‬ ‫הם תנאים כפולים ומכופלים כתנאי בני גד ובני ראובן הן קודם ללאו ותנאי קודם‬ ‫למעשה‪.‬‬ ‫תנאי ראשון קבל עליו החתן הנ"ל שלא ישא אשה אחרת עליה בחייה לא בתורת‬ ‫אשה אמה או פלגש שלא על פיה ורצונה ושלא יגרשנה מאתו כל ימי חייה שלא כדין‬ ‫ואם יעבור וישא אשה אחרת עליה בחייה שלא כדין או אם יגרשנה מאתו שלא כדין‬ ‫שיחוייב לתת לה כל סכי כתובתה נדונייתה ותוספתה שהיא שלשת אלפים ושבע‬ ‫מאות וחמשים פייסאס דא אונו היאליס מאיספאנייא ולפוטרה בגט כשר לאלתר ממנו‬ ‫בלי שום טענה ועירעור כלל ועיקר‪.‬‬ ‫תנאי שני התנו ביניהם החתן והכלה הנ"ל שאם ח"ו תפטר לב"ע הכלה הנ"ל בחיי‬ ‫בעלה ולא ישאר לו מ מנה זש"ק שיחויב החתן להחזיר ליורשי הכלה חצי נדונייתה‬ ‫שהכניסה לו שהיא אלף ושני מאות וחמשים פייסאס מהערך הנ"ל אבל אם ישאר‬ ‫‪.‬לו ממנה זש"ק אז יהיה הכל מן החתן כדין תורתנו הקדושה הבעל יורש את אשתו‬ ‫תנאי שלישי התנו ביניהם החתן והכלה הנ"ל שאם ח"ו יפטר לב"ע החתן הנ"ל בחיי‬ ‫אשתו אם לא ישאר לה ממנו זש"ק אז תקח היא ותגבה כל סכי כתובתה נדונייתה‬ ‫ותוספתה בתשלום אבל אם ישאר לה ממנו זש"ק אזי יהיה הכל בבחירת הזרע ההוא‬ ‫או אפוטרופוסים או לתת לה כל סכי כתובתה נדונייתה ותוספתה או לחלוק עמה כל‬ ‫נ‪ٜٜ‬כסי עזבון בעלה חלקים שוים‪.‬‬ ‫תנאי רביעי קבל עליו החתן שאם ח"ו יחלה חולי של סכנה ע"פ הרופאים המבקרים‬ ‫אותו באותו חולי ולא יהיה לו באותה שעה אז זש"ק לפוטרה מהיות זקוקה ליבם בגט‬ ‫‪.‬כשר שיתן בידה וזה יהיה כל זמן שיבואו מכחה וישאלו ממנו הגט הנזכר‬ ‫תנאי חמישי קבל עליו החתן הנ"ל ונשתעבד שלא לקבל במתנה מאת מרת דונא רחל‬ ‫אשתו הנ"ל שום חלק מעט או הרבה מסכי כתובתה ונדונייתה (נוסף מעל השורה‬ ‫’ותוספתה‘)‪ .‬ושלא לפתותה כדי שתתן לו שום חלק מהם ואם תעבור ותתן לו שום‬ ‫חלק מהם מעט או הרבה מעתה מתנתה אינה מתנה ודבריה אינם נחשבים לכלום‬ ‫‪ 17 No. 0149 in the Museum of Italian Jewish Art collection.‬‬

224

Part Two    The Middle Ages and the Renaissance ‫והם כחרס הנשבר שאין בו ממש וכל הנ"ל קבלו עליהם החתן והכלה הנ"ל בק"נ א"ס‬ ‫במדל"ב ובשי"ת לקיים כל מאי דכתי’ ומפו"ל הכל דלא כאסמ’ ולא כט"ד בביטול כל‬ .‫’מיני מודעות שבעולם על זה היה בפנינו אנן סהדי וכו‬

A number of notarized documents have been preserved and passed down over the generations that contain marriage agreements. One type of document is ‫הסכם אירוסין ונישואין‬,18 which predates the marriage and deals primarily with two issues: the mutual commitment to marry, and the settlement of the financial aspects between the two families. Additional conditions have been added to this agreement, all in accordance with the time, place, and families in question. A second type of agreement between the families is a document detailing the dowry that is signed after the wedding. The two main subjects in this document are notifications to and obligations of both parties to maintain family integrity, loyalty, respect, and so forth. This document also contains precise details of the dowry the bride brings into the marriage. Next to every item on the list is its monetary value. An example of a betrothal document can be seen in an agreement signed in Rome in 1640. This contract deals with the future marriage of Abraham de Riniano and his cousin Anna Toscano. The document is written in Latin,19 and the following is its translation (greatly abbreviated):20 This is the betrothal and marriage agreement, the terms of which were discussed and signed between the late Yosef ben Alia Toscano, a Jew, by virtue of his being the legal father and guardian of the ‫ הבתולה הכשרה‬Anna, on the one hand, and Avraham ben Rafael de Riniano, a Jew, on the other hand. 1. Yosef promised Avraham de Riniano, in his presence, that Anna, his daughter, finds him to be a true and legal groom and husband and she will marry him in accordance with Jewish law. Avraham promised Anna (not present), that he finds her to be his legal bride and wife and will marry her in accordance with Jewish law. 2. As a dowry, Joseph promised to pay Avraham three thousand and five hundred scudi in joli coins, ten for each scudo. 18 In Italian: “findatiae et pacta sponsalia.” 19 The document is in the Historical Archive of the Jewish Community of Rome. It is published in its original language in the article: Attilio Milano, “La vita private una famiglia di banchieri ebrei a Roma nel Seicento,” RMI 14 (1948): 306–8. 20 Translated from Attilio Milano, Ghetto of Rome, Images from the Past (Israel, 5752), 229.

Prenuptial Agreements in Ketubot from Italy 3. As a down payment of the above amount, Yosef Tuscano paid Avraham, in my presence, the above sum of one thousand scudi in joli coins, ten for each scudo. And Abraham took these joli coins into his possession. 4. Yosef promised to provide clothing and items that are to be evaluated, at the discretion of the parties, by two experts. The cash balance will be delivered in person during the marriage. 5. The marriage will take place within two years from today.

The rest of the agreement contains many additional detailed clauses dealing with the distribution of inheritance in the event of death of one of the parties, depending on the duration of the marriage up until the time of death, and the number of offspring born to the couple. An example of the details of a dowry can be seen from the list that was written up in Rome, 1617, following the marriage of Rosa Toscano:21 - Four 3-piece bed linen sets of different types with a suitable quilt—32 scudi. -  white embroidered headboard bolster pillow—35 scudi. -  Twenty nightgowns embroidered in different styles—53 scudi. - Three pairs of pillowcases—red satin with gold-embroidered, embroidered white satin and red silk—35 scudi.

And so forth. This dowry list continues in great detail. At the end of the list of items and their monetary value is the total value of the entire dowry—two hundred and forty scudi. In 1826, in Livorno, a notarized marriage agreement was signed between the family of the groom, Moses Milul, and the family of the bride, Rachel Bassano. The document states that the father of the bride is deceased and that Samuel, brother of the bride, would represent her family. The document is signed by the groom, Moses Milul, and the bride’s brother, Samuel Bassano, together with the signatures of two witnesses, both of whom have Jewish names. The agreement is handwritten and spreads over four pages. The agreement has an official stamp showing that it is a valid civil law document. The document includes an introduction presenting the families and the purpose of the contract between them. This is followed by five clauses. Three clauses deal with the commitment 21 Ibid.

225

‫‪Part Two    The Middle Ages and the Renaissance‬‬

‫‪to marry, the fourth clause details the dowry the bride’s family is to give the‬‬ ‫‪groom, and, in the fifth clause, the groom pledges to give the bride a Jewish‬‬ ‫‪marriage contract.22‬‬ ‫‪The following is the wording of the agreement:23‬‬ ‫בשם ה’ אמן‪ .‬בשנת אלף שמונה מאות עשרים ושש‪[ ,‬תאריך] השביעי לחודש‬ ‫פברואר בליבורנו הדוכסות הגדולה של טוסקנה‪[ .‬היות] ומר משה בן לוי מילול‪,‬‬ ‫יליד עיר זו‪ ,‬והמתגורר בה‪ ,‬ביקש באמצעות חברים משותפים ממר שלמה בן שמואל‬ ‫באּסנו ז"ל‪ ,‬גם הוא יליד ליבורנו וגם הוא מתגורר בה‪ ,‬שיתרצה לתת לו לכלה חוקית‬ ‫ורעיה לעתיד את אחותו הרווקה‪ ,‬הגברת רחל‪ ,‬בתה של שמואל באסנו ז"ל הנ"ל ושל‬ ‫הגב’ [קרלה] תבדל"א … אלמנתו של מר שמואל באסנו הנ"ל‪ ,‬בקשה לה מר שלמה‬ ‫באסנו‪ ,‬בתווך החברים המשותפים הנ"ל‪ ,‬הסכים‪ ,‬בהסכמתה בע"פ של אימו הנ"ל‪,‬‬ ‫הגב’ [קרלה] באסנו מסמך‪ ,‬אך כפי ‪ , ,‬בהצהרה שמה שיוצהר ו‪ -‬במסמך זה‪ ,‬ע"י‬ ‫מר שלמה באסנו הנ"ל‪ ,‬הוא עצמו מרצונו החופשי ולהתחייב לכל מִשלו ל‪ -‬הצדדים‬ ‫הנ"ל יקבע את ההסכמים והמענקים לביצוע הבטחה זו של נישואין וחתונה עתידית‬ ‫בין החתן והכלה האלה‪ ,‬לכן במסמך זה בעל ערך ‪ ,‬במקורי‪ ,‬ובצורה הטובה והתקפה‬ ‫ביותר אשר ניתן להגיד‪ ,‬הצדדים הנ"ל ביצוע החתונה הנ"ל בין החתן והכלה הנ"ל‬ ‫האדונים משה בן לוי מילול ורחל בת שמואל באסנו ז"ל קבעו אשר‬ ‫מר שלמה באסנו הנ"ל אחותו הנ"ל הגב’ רחל באסנו אחותו שלו להתאחד ]‪[1‬‬ ‫בנישואין עם הנ"ל מר משה בן לוי מילול;‬ ‫האדון] המוזכר‪ ,‬מר משה בן לוי מילול‪ ,‬מבטיח ומתחייב לקחת כלה חוקית[ ]‪[2‬‬ ‫ורעיה לעתיד את גב’ רחל הנ"ל בת לשמואל באסנו ז"ל‪ ,‬ולהתאחד בנישואין‬ ‫איתה בעת שכאן מוצהר;‬ ‫מועד טכס הנישואין בין החתן והכלה הנ"ל נותר להתבצע מהיום עד בעוד ]‪[3‬‬ ‫שנתיים בהסכמת הצדדים הנ"ל;‬ ‫מר שלמה באסנו הנ"ל של אחותו הגב’ רחל באסנו‪ ,‬מבטיח ומתחייב [להביא] ]‪[4‬‬ ‫משלו כנדוניה לה את הסכום של מטבעות‪ 24‬ארבע מאות [לירות]‪ ,‬אשר מהם‬ ‫שלוש מאות מטבעות [במזומנים] בפועל ומאה מטבעות במצעים‪ ,25‬זהב‪,‬‬

‫‪ 22 Nos. 0868, 2014 in the Museum of Italian Jewish Art collection.‬‬ ‫‪ 23 Illegible words are indicated by three dots. Words whose understanding is uncertain are in‬‬‫‪side square brackets [ ].‬‬ ‫‪ 24 The word pezze (literally “pieces”) was used in Livorno in order to indicate a currency whose‬‬ ‫‪value was known by those who drew up the agreement, but was different in different periods.‬‬ ‫‪Therefore, there is no way of knowing the exact amount.‬‬ ‫‪ 25 The word credo refers to bedding, tablecloths, items of clothing, and other fabrics for the new‬‬ ‫‪home, which a bride would customarily prepare in advance and bring to the wedding as part‬‬ ‫‪of the dowry.‬‬

‫‪226‬‬

‫‪227‬‬

‫‪Prenuptial Agreements in Ketubot from Italy‬‬ ‫תכשיטים ‪ ,‬וסכום זה יש לשלם ולמסור למר משה בן לוי מילול חתן באותו זמן‬ ‫של חתונתו עם הגב’ הנ"ל רחל באסנו כלתו;‬ ‫הנ"ל מר משה בן לוי מילול חתן ומתחייב שכאשר הנדוניה הנ"ל באופי ובצורה ]‪[5‬‬ ‫אשר לעיל‪[ ,‬יערוך] את הכתובה כלומר נייר של הנ"ל גב’ רחל באסנו כלתו עם‬ ‫כל אותם ההסכמים‪ ,‬נהוגים בכתובה‪[ ,‬נייר] אשר ליהודי עיר זו ליבורנו אחרת;‬ ‫כל הנ"ל נקבע‪ ,‬הוסכם והוחלט בין הצדדים הנ"ל תחת כל ההתחייבויות ובנאמנות‬ ‫לאחר שנעשתה ע"י הצדדים;‬

‫‪The notarized document lists the dowry that the bride’s family undertakes to‬‬ ‫‪transfer to the groom. The document also explicitly mentions the existence of‬‬ ‫‪a Jewish marriage contract, but it is quite apparent that the ketubah does not‬‬ ‫‪describe the dowry in detail but only mentions the existence of a dowry.‬‬

Part Three The Modern Period CHAPTER 12

Jewish Ashkenazi Gastronomy in Northern Italy in the Early Modern Period: The Testimony of the Book Mitzvot Hanashim ZAHAVA WEISHOUSE

F

rom the mid-fifteenth to the early seventeenth century, Northern Italy was one of Europe’s most developed regions. The Italian principalities, citystates, and republics (the Republic of Venice, for example) dominated all areas of life and attracted a flow of immigrants across the Alps throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Jews were among these immigrants, and their number—though not large—remained stable for 150 years, during which their Ashkenazi identity prevailed in the communities in Northern Italy. Despite its importance in Italy in the early modern period, historiographical research on the Ashkenazi community has been quite limited.1 Its 1 M. A. Shulvass, Between the Rhine and the Bosporus (Chicago: The College of Jewish Studies Press, 1964), 158–91.

Jewish Ashkenazi Gastronomy in Northern Italy

contribution to the shaping of Italian Jewry in general has yet to receive the academic interest it deserves.2 This study intends to fill in some of the lacunae by illuminating an area of singular importance in the Ashkenazi community of Northern Italy in the sixteenth century: the food culture. As Levi-Strauss, Douglas, Barthes, and others have shown, eating and food are not just basic physiological needs, but also they reflect class, social, and cultural symbols that every civilization expresses in a unique way, and which define the identity of individuals and their place in society. The Annales School, with its focus on social, cultural, and psychological history, and long-term processes, also notes food’s cultural and social influence on ethnic minorities.3 Therefore, a discussion on the cuisine in the Ashkenazi communities of Northern Italy in the early modern period reveals not only the Jewish people’s culinary customs but also may contribute to our understanding of various aspects of their lives, such as their degree of acculturation, relationship with the Christian environment, and their collective identity. The article focuses on two texts dealing with women’s commandments that shed light on the life of the Ashkenazi Jews in Northern Italy: the manuscript Seder Nashim (Women’s Order) (1504)4 and Mitzvot Hanashim (Women’s Commandments) (1552);5 both were written in Yiddish and published in Italy. The manuscript Seder Nashim seems to have been presented as a marriage gift to a women named Ts[?]urat by her father. The format is exceedingly modest, and, in all likelihood, it was not a wealthy family that ordered it. On the other hand, Daniel Adelkind, the son of the famous publisher, Cornelius Adelkind, published Mitzvot Hanashim in Venice. Both sources apparently were derived from a common source. We do not know who wrote or copied the works, but perhaps scholarly research or serendipitous discovery may eventually solve this question. The article is based mainly on the book Mitzvot Hanashim, as

2 See, for example, the comment by the Yiddish literary scholar, Chone Shmeruk, “This group deserves a comprehensive, detailed monograph not only because of its contribution to Yiddish Literature.” Chone Shmeruk, Yiddish Literature: Chapters in Its History (Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects, 1978), 74n4. 3 C. Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked (New York: Harper & Row, 1968); M. Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” in Implicit Meanings: Selected Essays in Anthropology (London– Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 231–51; R. Barthes, “Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption,” in Food and Culture, ed. Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterik (New York–London: Routledge, 1997), 20–27. 4 Seder Nashim, 1504, F 16836. 5 Mitzvot Hanashim, 1552, MIC. 256.

229

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the manuscript Seder Nashim is missing pages at the end of the chapter dealing with religious laws for the lighting of candles, a subject of particular relevance to our discussion. Books on women’s commandments in Yiddish are in effect guidebooks on halakhah ( Jewish religious law) and ancient customs. Since Yiddish was the spoken language, books written in Yiddish were designed to help women to understand their content, as most women were not versed in the holy tongue. The books endeavored to explain the correct performance of the commandments incumbent on every Jewish woman, in all areas of life, home, and community. These sources are, therefore, invaluable for exploring key issues in the Ashkenazi community of Italy, such as ritual impurity, women’s place in the family, and women’s spiritual and holy life.6 Nevertheless, they present the historian with a number of methodological challenges. First, do the texts reflect the daily life and customs of Ashkenazi Jewry in Northern Italy, merely the individual world of the author, or an ideal, imaginary world? When we begin to analyze the books of women’s commandments, extreme caution and meticulous scrutiny must be exercised in order to discern whether the text refers to a prevailing custom or to the author’s attempt to instruct the readers according to his subjective values. This methodological caveat notwithstanding, I wish to discuss the halakhot challah, which provide insights into the daily life and cooking of Ashkenazi Jews in Northern Italy in the transition between the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Because this is instructional literature in so central an area of a Jewish women’s life, it was written in the clearest possible language, and provided practical examples that reflect a concrete historical reality.7 During this period, women played a key role in home management and the family’s food intake. This was true for Jews and Christians whether in lowerclass homes or mansions with maids, in cases where the woman of the home 6 E. Fram, My Dear Daughter: Rabbi Benjamin Slonik and the Education of Jewish Women in Sixteenth-Century Poland (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2007), 139–49. For a survey on Mitzvot Hanashim books published in Italy, see Chava Turniansky and Erika Timm, eds., with the collaboration of Claudia Rosenzweig and essays by Israel Adler, Yiddish in Italia: Yiddish Manuscripts and Printed Books from the 15th to 17th Century (Associazione Italiana degli Amici dell Universita di Gerusalemme, 2003). 7 C. Roden, “The Dishes of the Jews in Italy,” in The Jews of Italy: Memory and Identity, ed. B. D. Cooperman and B. Garvin (Potomac: University Press of Maryland, 2000), 349–56, see 349: “Jewish cooking tells the history of a people and its vanished worlds. It is about ancestral memories and holding onto an ancient culture and very old identity. The Jewish food of Italy is an integral part of the history and culture of the Jews in Italy.”

Jewish Ashkenazi Gastronomy in Northern Italy

ran the household with singular authority. The home was the woman’s exclusive area of responsibility; every detail was under her supervision. Women took an active part in preparing the food, looking after the children, and overseeing the housework.8 Jewish women were tasked with keeping the Jewish tradition, especially in the culinary area. The commandments of kashrut and the separation of the challah were also means of entrenching the woman’s authority in the home. Therefore, the study of the religious laws on challah is a window to the food culture in Jewish life; identifies the extent of acculturation through a historical, social, and cultural prism; and elucidates the Ashkenazi communities’ response to changes in their way of life.9 The article’s main argument is that, according to the sources, Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated to Italy preserved their Ashkenazi particularity in the early modern period, while being aware of the cultural and social transformations taking place in their communities. Their cultural integration was completed only in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, when books in Italy were no longer printed in Yiddish—probably because of the lack of a human infrastructure for their preparation and the absence of a Yiddish-reading audience.

EUROPEAN DIET FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN PERIOD Until the eleventh century, the European diet was generally meager and unexciting, and was based mainly on grain. Later, wheat and rye breads baked in various ways became the main staple. Besides bread and grain porridges, fruits and vegetables were grown in the gardens of vassals and in the local countryside.10 Meat, mainly from pig herds, graced the table only on special occasions, such as religious holidays.11 Fish was also a basic food in coastal areas or areas with 8 For household management, the kitchen, table, and etiquette, see A. Toaff, Mangiare alla giudia (Societa editrice Il Mulino, 2000), 117–26; M. Rowling, Everyday Life in Medieval Times (Dorchester, UK: Dorcet Press, 1968), 85–93; R. A. Abusch-Magder, “The Possibility and Limits of Women’s Domestic Power,” in Food and Judaism, ed. Leonard J. Greenspoon et al. (Omaha: Creighton University Press, 2005), 169–92. 9 E. S. Horowitz, “Coffee, Coffeehouses and the Nocturnal Rituals of Early Modern Jewry,” AJS Review 14, no. 1 (1989): 17–46 (especially 17–19). 10 J. Dhont, The Early Middle Ages from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Dvir Publishers, 1996), 98. 11 On the increased consumption of meat in Europe in the fourteenth century, see J. Cooper, Eat and Be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 1993), 108.

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inland water sources. The vassals and lower classes had to be satisfied with leftovers and continuously faced the threat of starvation. On the other hand, royalty, the higher nobility, and heads of the church enjoyed sumptuous diverse meals the preparation of which demanded exceptional skill and labor.12 These classes imported a wide variety of food products, including expensive spices, from distant lands.13 The crusaders and the establishment of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem opened trade routes with Asia and the Far East that led to changes in eating styles in Europe.14 Social status determined the type of food, the manner of preparation, and table etiquette. The movement of immigrants from Northern and Central Europe southward—and in the opposite direction—during medieval times, naturally led to cultural cross-fertilization and the modification of daily habits. The need for local field crops and animal produce lessened as trade routes expanded, but basic foodstuffs remained the same until the modern period. The kitchens of Northern Europe and the German-speaking regions, for example, were based primarily on animal fat (much less than on vegetable oil), and on dough, beer, and alcoholic beverages. In Mediterranean countries, especially Italy, a very diverse kitchen developed. For a long period, Italy was essentially the bridge to Asia through which trade from the Orient entered the rest of Europe.15 Pasta, olive oil, wine, and a wide range of agricultural products and cooking methods transformed Italy into a model worthy of emulation. As trade with the Orient and Europe increased in the early Renaissance period, an urban merchant class sprang up and flourished in Italy. However, since the symbols of patriarchal lineage, dynasty, landownership, military power, and knighthood were beyond its reach, given its unprivileged background, it lavished its wealth on household symbols. The size of the merchants’ urban homes, the number of servants, the number of people seated at the table (students, orphans, and, in wealthy Jewish 12 On vegetables, see S. Comte, Everyday Life in the Middle Ages (Geneva: Minerva, 1978), 57–8. 13 B. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The 14th Century (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), 365–97; B. S. Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State, to 1620 (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1971), 63–85. 14 J. Prawer, The World of the Crusaders (Jerusalem, 1984), 199; on feasts, see P. Leguay, “Une manifestation de sociabilité urbaine: Les banquets municipaux en France aux XIV et XV siècles,” in La sociabilité à table. Commensalité et convivialité à travers les âges, ed. Martin Aurell et al. (Actes du Colloque de Rouen, Publication de L’Université de Rouen, 1990), 187–92; F. Fernandez-Armesto, Food: A History (London: Macmillan, 2001), 168–83; P. Camporesi, Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), 79–84; F. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism: 15th–18th Centuries (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), vol. I, 1–90; Rowling, Everyday Life in Medieval Times, 49–71. 15 Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, 398–415.

Jewish Ashkenazi Gastronomy in Northern Italy

homes, the number of religious scholars), interior decorations, kitchenware, art works, social connections with high society and nobility, the banquets and foods served to the guests—all reflected the male homeowners’ socioeconomic status.16

RELIGIOUS LAWS FOR CHALLAH—THE JEWISH-ASHKENAZI CUISINE The Ashkenazi Jews who settled in Northern Italy and the Po Valley assimilated into the Italian way of life. The internalization of this culture was expressed in their adoption of the Italian language and material life. Writing glossaries and dictionaries—the Daber Tov dictionary, for example, by David ben Zion Modena—leaves no doubt as to the Ashkenazi Jews’ need and desire to integrate into their new surroundings. Italy’s refined urban lifestyle17 is mirrored in the Yiddish literature that blossomed in Northern Italy from the sixteenth century to the third decade of the seventeenth century. One example is Eliyahu Bachur’s Bovo D’Antona,18 written in Yiddish in Padova in Northern Italy in 1507 and published in Isny, Southern Germany, in 1541. Its culinary traditions reflect the material life as well as the yearnings and aspirations of the readers. Alongside the Italian dishes that “Sir Bovo” is preparing for the feast are also traditional Ashkenazi delicacies: meat-filled quiches, goose fat dumplings, rice with almond slivers, and apple strudel sprinkled with sugar, cinnamon, raisins, and poppy seeds.19 Another literary work written in Yiddish that has received much attention by scholars is the Kü-Bukh (Book of Fables)20 that was published in Verona in 16 On meals and hospitality in Italian culture, see R. Weinstein, “The Marriage Ceremony of ‘Foreign’ Italian Jews in the Beginning of the Modern Period, A Chapter in Social History and Mentalitè History” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1995), 278–306. 17 E. Timm, “Das jiddischsprachige literarische Erb der Italo-Aschkensen,” in Schöpferische Momente des europäischen Judentums, ed. M. Graetz (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 2000), 161–75n167. 18 On the Bovo D’Antona work, see E. Katz, “Wasra bietziongan haben gehat Yiddish un Italianisch in 16 un 17,” Yiddische Kultur 54, no. 2 (1992): 17–22; C. Turniansky, “La letturatura Yiddish nell Italia del Cinquecento,” La Rassegna mensile di Israel 62 (1996): 63–92; C. Rosenzweig, “The Bovo D’Antona by Elye Bokher” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 2007). 19 Toaff, Mangiare alla giuda, 165–6. 20 For the book of fables, Kü-Bukh, see Book of Fables: The Yiddish Fable Collection of Reb Moshe Wallich Frankfurt am Main, 1697, trans. and ed. Eli Katz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994); E. Katz, “Das Kü-Bukh: Mekorim un Beiharbatung,” Yiddische Kultur, 44, no. 5 (1982): 6–10; E. Katz, “Wasra bietziongan haben gehat Yiddish un Italianisch in 16 un 17” Yiddische Kultur 54, no. 2 (1992): 19–21.

233

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Part Thre    The Modern Perio

1555 and in later editions. The book describes in detail dishes and foods unquestionably identified by their names with traditional Italian fare of the same period. These include macaroni, stuffed tortelli (widespread in the Veneto area), and mostaccioli alla Milanese (cylinder-shaped pasta). According to Mayer-Modena, there was a near total assimilation of Ashkenazi Jews in Italy even if the language remained Yiddish. However, this seems too sweeping a view.21 Ariel Toaff found that “traditional Ashkenazi delicacies such as calves foot jelly, gefilte fish, rice pilaf with almonds and raisins, and salt and freshwater fish in garlic sauce”22 appear in Kü-Bukh. It seems quite unlikely, therefore, that Ashkenazi Jews read Yiddish but ate all’ Italiana cuisine.23 Mitzvot Hanashim reinforces the conclusion that Ashkenazi Jewry’s adaptation to Italian culture and life took about a century more until it was fully completed. Mitzvot Hanashim’s 1552 printing testifies to the reading public’s need for religious commandments in Yiddish, and the importance this public attributed to preserving its tradition in the new environment. As stated, the religious laws for challah in Mitzvot Hanashim enable us to examine the gastronomy of Ashkenazi Jewry in Italy in the period under discussion. The discussion on challah opens with two short paragraphs (73, 74), each of thirteen lines. The author categorizes the types of grain to be used for baking bread, from which the woman is required to observe the commandments for separating and blessing the challah and washing the hands. The laws dealing with the separation of the challah are related to the types of flour, the size of the dough, the correct amount of dough to be separated, participation in the kneading, the dough of a person who bakes challah for a livelihood, separating the challah at Passover, and Gentile leavened dough, and are written clearly and concisely without abstruse commentary so as not to overburden the readers. 21 M. Mayer-Modena, “Leggi in yiddish ma mangia all’Italiana: assimilazione gastronimica degli Ashkenaziti nell’Italia rinascimentale,” La Rassegna mensile di Israel 62 (1996): 124–36; M. Mayer-Modena, “The Ahasuerus Feast of Italian Jewry,” Brit Ivrit Olamit: 13th Conference (2001): 52–58. Mayer-Modena’s assertion is not supported by the abovementioned works, which were written in the same period. Indeed, there are indications of Ashkenazi Jewry’s acculturation into Italian society; in their fantasies and yearnings, they wished to appear like royalty, but most of the foods they prepared remained according to the best Ashkenazi traditions. 22 On the Jews from Ashkenaz and garlic eating, see Y. Deutsch, “Judaism in Christian Eyes: Ethnographic Theories of Judaism in the Works of Christian Scholars in Western Europe from the Sixteenth Century to the Mid-Eighteenth Century” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 2004), 299–300. 23 Toaff, Mangiare alla giuda, 165–6.

Jewish Ashkenazi Gastronomy in Northern Italy

Most of the challah commandments are devoted to the bakery goods that the women made in their homes for the Sabbath and holidays. The writer uses Ashkenazi names for the bakery products, spices, ingredients, and foods. In Sefer Ha-Minhagim (The Book of Customs) these foods are attributed to Maharil (Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin, 1365–1427), which testifies to the continuity of Ashkenazi tradition. The text describes the preparation of food and dishes in great detail, and also the woman’s intended purpose in their preparation. Paragraph 80, for example, states that it is befitting for women to prepare Friday night’s veremzlisch,24 kuchlicht, as well as the Sabbath cakes the evening before, and bake them from the dough that they bless for challah separation.25 Paragraph 81 explains that when a woman prepares dough with the intention of baking bread, but changes her mind and decides to prepare veromzlisch or other bakery products, challah separation must take place, because the very thought of bread obligates the separation of challah. Furthermore, if at first she intends to prepare different types of noodles26 from the dough and then decides to bake bread, the dough, naturally, requires challah separation.27 Paragraph 82 discusses the preparation of pashtat,28 meat-filled dough baked or cooked, so floden, cheese-filled dough, the two kinds of dough that do not require separation of challah. 24 On the subject of veromzlish, see M. Kasover, “Yiddish Foods,” in Yuda A. Yofe-Buch, ed. Yudel Mark (New York: Yiddischer Wissanschaftlacher Instistute Bibliotek YIVO fon YIVO, 1958), 10, 61–80 (especially pp. 65–7); in Yosef Yuzpa Han’s Yosef Ometz (Frankfurt am Main: Hermon Edition, 1928), a similar custom is described in the context of chewing the veromzlisch, paragraph 569, p. 121; see also Fram, My Dear Daughter, 284; Maharil, Sefer Minhagim 85, no. 5, 169, no. 7; note that the Yiddish word is written in different ways. 25 Kasover, “Yiddish Foods,” 116–130 (especially 127). 26 On noodles, see “they are lokshen called verimzlich,” ibid., 66; on the assumptions regarding pasta in Europe and its evolution in the Jewish kitchen, see Cooper, Eat and Be Satisfied, 80–82. 27 Tor Yoreh Deah, Jewish Laws on Challah, 429, 10, vol. 10, part 2 (1990). 28 Kasover, “Yiddish Foods.” The words pashtida (quiche) and flodin were also common among the original Jews of Italy, 73: “The proofreader Yehuda Aryeh Mimodna who published the book Lavush Hatichelet: ‘But pashtida and kreplach in the Ashkenazi language refer to dough, and the meat in it is described as bread in some cases.’” And in the Lavush Hachor, “And flodin in the Ashkenazi language [means whole dough] with cheese.” Maharil, Sefer Minhagim 85, no. 7: “And when a large amount of pashtida or flodin is baked and one forgets to remove the challah, it will be added in a basket and the challah will be removed later.” Cooper, Eat and Be Satisfied, 80–89; Deutsch, “Judaism in Christian Eyes” 289: “A food by the name of ‘pasteen’ is the earliest example and is found in the dictionary of Gerim … food by this name from 1565… . This is a French word and its German equivalent is Falde. At any rate, it is a bakery product consisting of two layers of dough with some kind of filling in between.”

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For example: And if you want to bake [dough] in a vessel, and meat or cheese is the main ingredient [of the bakery product], the separation of challah from this is not obligated. But from the dough for meat quiches or dough for cheese, which is not filled with anything, the hands must be washed and hamotzee [blessing over the bread] recited, but challah separation is not removed from this dough.29

Furthermore, if a large batch of dough is prepared together with a second batch for a quiche, then the second batch is cancelled because of the quiche dough, and is not eaten without reciting the blessing over the bread because of the uncertainty. Paragraph 83 discusses different types of cakes and bakery products: kuchlicht. For cookies whose flour is kneaded with butterfat or oil and are not filled, challah must be separated from the dough, the hands washed, and the blessing over bread recited: And from the kuchen cake30 that was baked dry in a pan that is soft first, challah must be removed, as it is from other bread, and in accordance with all the laws connected with bread. If one greases the pan with butterfat, except for the scaleti nibuli31 [very thin ladder-shaped biscuits] that are baked dry, soft and slender for Purim, a circumcision rite, or wedding that is celebrated on Sabbath,32 and many [scaleti nibuli] are eaten, hamotzee for the real bread must be recited and afterwards the blessing over the bread for the bread [the pastry] too.33 29 Mitzvot Hanashim, 412, Paragraph 82. 30 Kasover, “Yiddish Foods,” 120–1; for Sabbath and holiday foods in Ashkenazi communities in the Middle Ages, see Cooper, Eat and Be Satisfied, 97–120. 31 Kasover, “Yiddish Foods,” 126n419; see also “nibuli” (in French—neules, from the Latin— nebulas, which means a baked product), in J. Österrwicher, Beiträge zur Geschichte der judisch-fanzosischen Sprache und Literatur im Mittelalter, 12n27 (Heinrich Pardini: Tschernowitz,1896); F. Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialects du IXe au XIe siècles (Nendeln, LIE: Kraus), 501; the word nyebles means “foggy” in the metaphoric sense of something thin and insubstantial. Calling the layers of pastry dough “thin” had religious significance. In the thirteenth century, this bakery product was sold in churches on holidays; A. Romer-Segel, The Women’s Commandments Books in Yiddish in the Sixteenth Century (master’s thesis in Yiddish Literature, Hebrew University, 1979), 12. 32 Rabbi Yozefa Shamash, Customs in the Holy City of Wermaysa (Jerusalem: Machon Jerusalem, 1988), part 2, 52–9. 33 Mitzvot Hanashim, 412, paragraph 83.

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The author explains that for the preparation of scaleti nibuli cookies, women are required to knead a large piece of dough from which the separation of challah has been taken, so that the scaleti nibuli is released from separation of challah. Clarifying the issue of the Italian name—scaleti nibuli—which appears in the Yiddish texts, demonstrates that Ashkenazi Jews of the sixteenth century preserved the name and manner of preparing Ashkenazi dishes, while simultaneously employing Italian terms in the dialect of Venice and its vicinity. The written texts elaborate on this particular pastry perhaps because of its popularity among both Jews and Christians. According to scholars, it was a very thin wafer made from flour, butter, and sugar, and baked in a special pan. It required exceptional expertise, and Christian bakers who specialized in its preparation were called scaleteri.34 The bakery product was called sgaliten35 in an earlier work, Leket Yosher, by Rabbi Yosef ben Moshe, and cites Rabbi Israel Isserlein, the author of Terumat Hadeshen, “all of the diners are allowed to eat this piece of bread [particular bakery product]”36 since he apparently regards it as ordinary bread (bakery product). Another reason for elaborating on its use for special events may be that Jews purchased scaleti nibuli from local bakers who specialized in its preparation,37 and questions arose regarding the commandments for this procedure. Since the women’s books of commandments lack sufficient clarity on this issue, it is impossible to determine whether the dough was bought from non-Jews, or prepared at home by Jewish women. The following are cases of bakery goods that required, and cases that were exempted, from the separation of challah: [for] Cakes38 made with spices39 that are eaten without the ritual washing of the hands, and a bakery product based mainly on spices, it is forbidden 34 G. Maffioli, La cucina Veneziana (Padova: F. Muzzio, 1982), 179. 35 Kasover, “Yiddish Foods,” 1–145n452; on the pastries called scalette that were widespread in Venice and its vicinity, see Maffioli, La cucina Veneziana, 178–9: “‘Scaleter’ e parola piu strana, e vale ovviamente per venditore di ‘scalette’ che evidentemente erano dolci popolarissimi, di cui pare si sia perduta la ricotta e l’uso, che dovevano avere la forma di uan scaletta … a chi fa e vende bericuocoli, cialdoni, cantucci, confortini … chiamasi chi vende paste doci.” 36 Rabbi Yosef Ben Moshe, Leket Yosher: Including Customs, Religious Decisions and Responses (Yaakov Freiman ed., 1964), 61; see also E. E. Urbach, Baalei Hatosafot, vol. I, 417; on foods baked by Gentiles for the evening meal before a circumcision in Ashkenaz, see Elisheva Baumgarten, Mothers and Children ( Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center, 2005), 154. 37 On the kitchens of the Venetian Jews, see Maffioli, La cucina Venezian, 217–38. 38 Kasover, “Yiddish Foods,” 100–107 (especially 102). 39 “Gewirtzen” means spices; A. Weinreich, Modern English-Yiddish, Yiddish-English Wörterbuch (New York: Schocken Books Inc., 1968), 120.

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The book’s didactic tone is apparent in the chapter on the challah commandment, and the author emphasizes this issue in order to prevent any doubt from arising during the preparation of food, since the laws dealing with the separation of challah are very complex and were influenced by local tradition. The discussion on the challah laws ended on an upbeat note and poetical language with reference to Jerusalem and the Holy Temple: “But in the time of the Temple the challah was given to the cohanim (priests). The Talmud states the amount. Lord, allow us to observe your commandments as they should be for Jerusalem your Holy City.”44 As the above examples in Mitzvot Hanashim illustrate, the assimilation of the values and norms of Italian cuisine was quite limited, and the integration with the Italian kitchen in the preparation of dishes and bakery products in the home was practically nonexistent. Keeping in mind the didactic nature of the work, the use of terminology and ingredients with which its readers were familiar, as well as the near total absence of local ingredients and dishes, indicate that the integration of Ashkenazi Jews in the majority culture was still in its infancy. The pressure and desire to preserve Ashkenazi traditions and customs is conspicuous, the proof of which is the book’s stress on commandments written by the most distinguished Ashkenazi rabbis. On matters relating to the public 40 Rabbi Yaakov Molin, Maharil, Sefer Minhagim ( Jerusalem: Machon Jerusalem, 1989), 71, 110, “breia” means porridge; Kasover, “Yiddish Foods,” 47–8. 41 Rabbi Isaac Tyrnau, Sefer Minhagim (S. Y. Spitzer ed., Jerusalem Institute, 1979), Chapter 5, 45, “kimmel” means caraway. 42 In the Talmud the plant is called achroa (anise) (Pimpinella anisum), Jerusalem Talmud, 81, 51, p. 4; Natan Ben Yechiel, Ha’aroch Hashalem (C. Y. Kohut ed.), vol. I, 84; Rabbi Yaakov Ben Asher, Tur Orach Hachaim, siman 204. On the anise plant and its distribution in Europe in the Roman period and Middle Ages, see J. Vehling, Apicus: Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome (New York: Dover Publications, 1977), 236; I. Gozzini Giacosa, A Taste of Ancient Rome (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 16, 22, 157; M. Grieve, A Modern Herbal: The Medicinal Culinary, Cosmetic and Economic Properties (Darien, CT: Hafner Publishers, 1972), vol. 1, 4–41; E. A. Weiss, Spice Crops (Wallingford, UK: CABI Publishers, 2002), 222–3. 43 Mitzvot Hanashim, 1552, paragraph 84. 44 Ibid., paragraph 98.

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sphere, to pat goyim (Gentile bread) and bishulei goyim (Gentile cooking), the same trend is manifest.

KASHRUT: GENTILE BREAD AND GENTILE COOKING The second area of challah law that is discussed at length is pat goyim and bishulei goyim, especially bread baking. In Germany (Ashkenaz) and Italy, Jews often faced a reality that ran counter to Jewish law and religious tradition. The legal decisions handed down by generations of rabbis reflect Jewish life in this reality and the need to cope with problems of time and place.45 Eating pat goyim was permitted in the Ashkenazi communities of Northern Italy and in many other parts of Ashkenaz because of physical problems of survival wherever Jews dwelt.46 Jews did not own bakeries in Northern Italy in this period, and the author’s keen awareness of this situation clearly reflects the Jews’ relationship with the dominant Gentile society and their adaption to living conditions in their new land. Paragraph 75 in Mitzvot Hanashim briefly discusses Gentile dough: Therefore, Asheri [Rabbi Asher Ben Yechiel] forbade this.47 Dough that Gentiles have baked or boiled without [ Jewish] supervision is forbidden. There is no permission of the bread. Thus too, scaleti nibuli are forbidden. But if the oven has been made kosher and a male or female Gentile takes new vessels in which they are boiled or fried and a Jew stands next to them, regardless of whether the Gentiles do the frying, the Talmud granted us permission. I cannot write an explanation for this, only that we do what the Talmud has written in it [and] which the Jews believe. But our bread [from vessels] not ritually purified, the Talmud forbids. And if there are many Jews in these cities it is forbidden to buy or sell [bread] when it is cut. And if a Gentile fries an egg [in an oven] and the oven has not been ritually purified and if the Jew has forgotten to turn over [his food that is being cooked], it is forbidden to eat. [This refers to permission when a Jew “turns over” something being cooked or moves the embers, as one who participates in the cooking] but no matter how small the degree to which 45 H. Soloveitchik, “Can Halakhic Texts Talk History?,” AJS Review 3 (1978): 153–96. 46 Y. Zamir, “Baking Customs in Ashkenazi Communities in the Middle Ages,” Zion 65, no. 2 (2000): 141–62. 47 Responsa, Rabbi Asher Ben Yechiel, siman ‫ ;כצ"ה‬Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, vol. 8, siman 112–14.

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The text deals less with Jewish legal matters52 than with practical instructions on how to conduct oneself by the oven while cooking, which foods may be eaten without cooking, and laws regarding the daily presence of Gentile servants in the kitchen. All of the works in Yiddish on women’s commandments repeatedly admonish that what is stated refers to ordinary, uncomplicated circumstances, but in special, complex cases, experts, that is, talmidei chachamim (students of religion) must be sought for clarification. This instruction charac 48 Glut and gluhen mean heat. 49 Mitzvot Hanashim (1552), paragraph 75. 50 See the entry “Eating Prohibitions” in Meir Bar-Ilan et al., eds., Talmudical Encyclopedia, vol. 4 (1947), 667–74. 51 Mitzvoth Nashim, 312, paragraph 75. 52 Regarding pat goyim and bishulei goyim, see Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, vol. 8, paragraphs 1–17; Z. A. Steinfeld, “Cooking Done by Israel and Gentiles and the Custom of Throwing a Toothpick into the Oven,” Sidra 14 (1998): 101–30; Z. A. Steinfeld, “Gentile Matters: The Prohibitions and Permissions on Eating,” Sinai 86 (1980): 149–66; Z. A. Steinfeld, “They Decreed the Bread Non-Kosher Because of Non-Kosher Oil, and the Oil Non-Kosher Because of Non-Kosher Wine” (“Gazru al pitan mishum shamnan, vi’al shamnan mishum yeinan”), Sinai 87 (1980): 273–81.

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terizes the text’s adherence to extreme caution in everything related to difficult halakhic questions. The text maintains that its explanations are not intended to replace the rabbinate, religious scholars, or legal works of the authorized rabbinical courts. The deep interest in bishulei goyim and pat goyim in the chapter on challah laws is the clearest indication of the profound difficulties the Italian Jews faced regarding the acquisition of foodstuffs, such as kosher bread, cheese,53 and wine.54 Ingesting beef or mutton that came from nonkosher slaughter was a taboo that Jews did not transgress. Sometimes they were forced even to pull up stakes because ritually slaughtered meat was unavailable, or they had to be satisfied with eating poultry over long periods.55 The hardships involved in observing religious precepts and preparing meat according to Jewish halakhah stemmed from the small Jewish communities in rural areas, the dispersion of the Jewish population across Northern Italy, and the economic and religious interests that motivated the local authorities and guilds to put obstacles in the way of Jewish ritual slaughter. Added to this was the church’s intervention for religious reasons. Under these tenuous circumstances, Jewish communities solved the problem of the kosher slaughter of fowl by allowing it to be done in the home. Thus, permission and authorization to slaughter fowl was granted even to women and boys over the age of thirteen (bar mitzvah).56 53 On the preparation of cheeses under Jewish supervision, see Rabbi Uzriel Ben Shlomo Dina, Resposna, ed. Yaakov Buksenboym (Tel Aviv University, The School of Jewish Studies, 1977–79), simanim 84–97, pp. 187–221; according to Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Mimodena, see Toaff, Mangiare alla giudia, 74. 54 A. Toaff, “La vita materiale,” in Storia d’Italia, Annali II, Gli Ebrei in Italia, ed. Corrado Vivanti (1996), 237–63 (especially 251). 55 On the Jews’ need of kosher meat, and the economic advantages of the Jews having their own slaughterhouses, see R. Segre, “Gli Ebrei e il mercato delle carni a Casale Monferrato nel tardo Cinquecento,” in Miscellanea di studi in memoria di Dario Disegni, ed. E. M. Artom et al. (Torino: Istituto Studi Ebraici, Scuola Rabbinica), 1969; Rabbi Uzriel Ben Shlomo Dina, Responsa, siman 108, p. 321: “to be hinted here: Meat of fowl is not good for the health”; A. Zohar, “The Tradition of Purified Fowl in the Communities of Italy,” Sinai 132 (2003): 133–44; on Gentile wine, see J. Cohen, “The History of the Debate over Gentile Wine in Italy,” Sinai 77 (1975): 62–90; H. Soloveitchik, “Wine”: The Trade in Wine of Non-Jews: The Evolution of the Halakha in Practice (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2003), 107–8; The Letters of Rabbi Leon of Modena (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1948), 135–8; A. Toaff, Il vino e la carne: Una communità ebraica nel Medioevo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1989), 92–100; J. Woolf, “Between Law and Society: Mahriq’s Responsum on the Ways of the Gentiles,” AJS Review 25 (2000): 45–69. 56 Toaff, Il vino e la carne, 87–92; Y. Tzuriel, “Permitting Women to Engage in Ritual Slaughter: Restrictions before Restrictions,” Hagigei Giva 3 (1995): 91–99; Y. Tzuriel, “Permitting Ritual Slaughter for Women,” in Mabuei Afikim—Jubilee Book, Studies on the Heritage of

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Eating bread baked in Gentile bakeries in Italy was permitted almost universally because of the need for this basic source of sustenance, as Rabbi Azriel Dayena’s response implies.57 According to the account of Rabbi Yozefa Shamash (1613–78) in Wermaysa (Worms), there was an oven in the house of the shamash (sexton) for preparing food and bread for the Sabbath.58 In Magentza (Mainz), too, there are early seventeenth-century accounts of the community’s supervision of baking bread and Passover matzot. But it seems that the baker was not a Jew. The baking of matzot generally caused the Jews great distress because of its proximity to Easter.59 Unlike the situation in the Ashkenazi lands, no Jewish-owned bakeries or ovens existed in the ghetto of Venice60 where Ashkenazi Jews, Loazim ( Jews in Italy since Second Temple times), Sephardim, and Levantines ( Jews from Greece and Asia Minor) had settled and lived apart from one another. In 1594 and 1596, the Levantine community of merchants asked the municipal government for permission to open a Jewish-owned bakery, but it seems that the request was denied. The bread baking problem resurfaced in 1619, when Shmuel Cohen Salon (the grandson or perhaps nephew of Daniel Rodriga who had played a major role in developing the city’s mercantile activity) peti-

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Yemenite Jewry and Culture, ed. Yosef Dachoach-Halevi (Tel Aviv: Afikim, 1996), 313–23; R. Bonfil, Bemarah ksufah ( Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1994), 108–110, 154; M. Perry, “L’abattage ritual et les femmes: tradition, lois et réalité à la fin du Moyen Age,” in Associazione italiana per lo studio del giudaismo: Atti del IX convegno, ed. Michele Luzzati and Cristina Galasso (Lucca, 2005), 171–78. Rabbi Uziel Ben Shlomo Dina, Responsa, 1, p. 63; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Haim, siman 168, paragraph 5; A. Taoff, Mangiare alla giudia, 96: “In genere gli ebrei italiani non pretendevano di sovegliare la preparazione del pane in quelle botteghe cristine che servivano il ghetto, ne di avere proprie panetterie, fidanddosi del fatto che sia il pane bianco sia quello fatto con cereali inferiori non sarebbero stati cotti con grassi proibiti, con l’unto di strutto o di lardo.” Rabbi Yozefa, Customs in the Holy City of Wermaysa, Part 1, p. 32 (especially n4). Y. Zamir, “Baking Customs in Ashkenazi Communities in the Middle Ages,” Zion 65, no. 2 (2000): 19–158; R. Liberles, “Life in the Jewish Vicinity,” in Existence in the Age of Change: Daily Life of the Jews in Germany 1618–1945, ed. Marion Kaplan ( Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center, 2008), 115–1216 (especially 120–21). On Jewish Settlement in Venice, see B. Ravid, “The Establishment of the Ghetto Nuovissimo of Venice,” in Jews in Italy: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of U. Cassuto, ed. H. Beinart ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1988), 35–54; B. Ravid, “New Light on the Ghetti of Venice,” in Shlomo Simonsohn Jubilee Volume: Studies on the History of the Jews in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Period, ed. D. Carpi et al. (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1993), 149–76; B. Ravid, “The Religious, Economic and Social Background and Context of the Establishment of the Ghetti of Venice,” in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. David B. Ruderman (New York: New York University, 1992), 211–59.

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tioned the Cinque Savi (Council of the Five—the municipal fathers) to allow the Jews to open a bakery and sell bread in the ghetto. No record has survived of the council’s response, but the discourse on the matter bears witness that Venetian Jews were not allowed to bake their bread or own ovens.61 Their goal was to receive permission to oversee baking being done by Gentiles. The problem with Gentile ovens was not limited to bread. Another bone of contention was cooking pork and kosher meat, and dishes containing both milk and meat, in the same oven. Mahari Mintz (Padova, 14??–1509) responded to the question of reicha milta (when two foods are baked simultaneously in an oven, the danger arises of the aroma being imparted from one to the other),62 and decided categorically that there was nothing to prevent baking in non-Jewish ovens.63 Naturally, the religious legal elite wished to enforce the following prohibitions: eating bread and baked goods cooked in ovens without Jewish supervision; eating milk and dairy products without Jewish supervision; milking done by Gentiles; and the preparation of dairy foods and other dishes by Gentiles and sold in their stores and markets. But the general line that the sages kept to was: “Let Israel be. Better that mistakes are made than deliberate transgressions made,”64 on matters concerning rabbinical injunctions. For example, throughout the Middle Ages, the rabbis in Germany generally permitted eating pat goyim. Purchasing bakery products from Christians by Jews was a common occurrence,65 but in certain parts of Germany where Jews were permitted to bake their own bread and supervise bakeries, the ruling was more stringent concerning pat goyim.66 Surviving sources attest to the strictest observance of matters related to kosher meat on Italian soil, but wine, bread, bakery products, milk, cheese, butter, foodstuffs pickled in vinegar and salt, and fruit and vegetables prepared by Gentiles were, for all practical purposes, permitted, according to the legal decisions of contemporary religious scholars. The prohibitions and permissions on the issues discussed until now—pat goyim and bishulei goyim—were relative to and influenced by the conditions of 61 B. Ravid, “‘Kosher Bread’ in Baroque Italy,” Italia 6, nos. 1–2 (1987): 20–29. 62 Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim, 66, pp. 1–2; and also Y. Zamir, “Baking Customs in Ashkenazi Communities in the Middle Ages,” Zion 65, no. 2 (2000): 143–7. 63 Mahari Mintz, “Hay lachem zera tzdaka u’she’eilot” (1553), 29, side 2. 64 Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat, 148, side B; see also Maharil, Sefer Minhagim, Laws for Yom Kippur Evening, 4”5 [10]; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Haim, siman 608, B. 65 Baumgarten, Mothers and Children, 154–5. 66 See note 45 above.

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time and place where Jews dwelt. The detailed treatment in Mitzvot Hanashim and Seder Nashim reflects the dilemmas that Ashkenazi Jewry faced in this period, and also illustrates that their authors were familiar with the changes traditional Ashkenazi customs were undergoing and were doing their utmost to preserve them and the immigrant communities’ way of life in Northern Italy.

THE PROHIBITION AGAINST EATING WITH GENTILES BECAUSE OF ANIMOSITY TOWARD THEM AND FEAR OF INTERMARRIAGE The halakhic injunction against eating in the company of a Gentile67 is not mentioned in the challah laws of the abovementioned works, but paragraphs 7568 and especially 91 indirectly discuss relations between Christians and Jews: “And after Passover when no leavened dough [for baking bread in Jewish homes] is found and the leavened dough is taken from the Gentiles, it is prohibited to take challah [separate the challah from this bread].”69 The author explains at length how to bake bread that was kneaded with Gentile leavened dough and how to deal with it so that the separation of challah is possible. The source of this unintentionally revealing statement in paragraphs 75 and 91 testifies to the intensity and complexity of the Jewish–Gentile interaction. The books of women’s commandments make an effort to clarify and systematize Ashkenazi customs, and arrive at a modus vivendi between reality and religious precepts. In the Babylonian Talmud, ein maamidin,70 discusses the prohibitions connected with Gentile foods and wine. The injunction against Gentile wine relates to two main problems: drinking wine used as an offering in idolatrous libation, and cordial relations and social contact that often develop while drinking together and that could result in an attraction to Christianity and a Christian way of life.71 The wish to prevent social proximity between Jew and Christian was of mutual interest to the Christian religious establishment and the Jewish leadership throughout the Middle Ages and early modern peri 67 Babylonian Talmud, Shabat, 72; Z. A. Steinfeld, “Prohibition on Eating with a Gentile,” Sidra 5 (1989):131–48. 68 See note 51 above. 69 Mitzvot Hanashim, 312, paragraph 91. 70 Babylonian Talmud, 77, 37, 3. 71 On socializing and drinking wine in the Middle Ages, see A. Martin, “Old People, Alcohol and Identity in Europe, 1300–1700,” in Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe since the Middle Ages, ed. Peter Scholliers (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 119–37 (especially 130–32).

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od. Christian opposition to Jews was strong throughout Italy in this period and was accompanied by anti-Jewish propaganda. This explains the delicate balance that the Jews had to maintain so as not to rupture the fabric of life it shared with Christian society. The smallest ripple could have far-reaching implications on the fate of the Jews. The stringent religious rulings on the eating prohibitions and preparation of food created a social rift and invisible barrier between Jew and Christian. The separation in culinary activity was, then, a religious obligation. However, in the cultural, social, and economic spheres, it created the necessary foundation on which Jews could live with some degree of integration in the Gentile environment.72 The Jews of Italy seem to have been unable to abide by the prohibition against dining with Gentiles, especially according to bemishteh livno or the stricter paragraph on the prohibition against eating with Gentiles under any circumstances.73 The reality of urban life and mercantile and economic activity resulted in Jews and Christians meeting in markets and shops and cultivating neighborly relations. Despite urban segregation, social contact was unavoidable.74 Jews became an integral partner in the dynamic weave of life, and Jewish and Christian society became inseparable, notwithstanding attempts by the leaderships of both communities to perpetuate the gap. Christians and Jews engaged in trade, arbitration, moneylending, and other areas of urban economic activity, and, by the nature of things, they dined, drank, and spent leisure time together. Servants, maids, and wet nurses were employed in Jewish homes. The repeated efforts by the church to isolate the Jews bore little fruit and prove the extent of the Jewish communities’ social assimilation. For the same reasons, as well as the fear of enmity between Jew and Christian, the Jewish sages and religious judges were forced to relax the prohibitions against Jewish–Christian social interaction.75 72 Y. Katz, Between Jews and Gentiles: Jews’ Relations with their Neighbors in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period ( Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1960), 46–54; Y. Katz, “Reflections on the Relationship between Religion and Economy,” Tarbitz 60 (1991): 99–11; D. Kraemer, “Separating the Dishes: The History of a Jewish Eating Practice,” in Food and Judaism, ed. Leonard J. Greenspoon et al. (Nebraska: Creighton University Press, 2005), 235–56. 73 Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah, 8, 70–72. 74 On the social and cultural interaction between Jews and Christians, see R. Weinstein, “Lecture par un Juif d’un ritual de marriage chrétien,” in La famille, les femmes et le quotidian (XIVe–XVIIIe siècle), ed. Isabelle Chabot et al. (Paris: Textes offerts à Chritiane KlapischZuber, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2006), 366; E. Cohen and E. Horowitz, “In Search of Sacred: Jews, Christians, and Rituals of Marriage in the Later Middle Ages,” JMRS 20, no. 2 (1990): 225–49 (especially 228–9). 75 The entry “Hatred,” in Meir Bar-Ilan et al., eds., Talmudical Encyclopedia, vol. I, 491–3.

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CONCLUSION The dishes and foods on the table of Ashkenazi Jews in Northern Italy bear a striking similarity to their traditional food in Germany. Since the gastronomic culture reflects a society’s way of life and mentality, it would be fair to say that the internal cycle of home life and family in the Ashkenazi community retained most of its Ashkenazi customs. The seeds of change that appear in the names of Italian foods testify to the beginning of linguistic, cultural, and gastronomic transformations. The culinary metamorphosis increased over the years as Italy continued to develop the richest and most diverse cuisine in Europe, which included specialty breads, sweet pastas, pastry made from almonds, unique confectioneries such as marzipan, the scaleti nibuli wafer, and a wide range of spices, including anise. As regards Gentile bread and milk, dairy products, wine, fried and pickled fish76 and salted and smoked foods, the necessities of sustenance left the Ashkenazi Jews of Italy little choice but to readjust their lives as the rest of Italy’s Jews had done. The authors of the texts discussed in the article were aware of the transition transpiring in the Ashkenazi community in Northern Italy and its desire to preserve its traditions. The precepts in each chapter—nidah (menstruation), challah, hadlakat haner (lighting of candles), and so forth—emphasize the religious authority of famous Ashkenazi rabbis: Rabbi Shlomo–Rashi; his outstanding pupil, Rabbi Simcha; Rabbi Asher Ben Yechiel (Harosh);77and Rabbi Yitzhak Miduren.78 One example of this is the instruction to women to bless the separation of challah in honor of Rabbeinu Shlomo (Rashi), where it is written: “For Rabbeinu Shlomo, do not bless separation of challah but bless separation of trumah [heave offering] from the dough,”79 “thus it is written in the book of Pardes80 that was written by Rabbeinu Simcha. ‘This is the correct commandment and everything is written in the Lord’s Torah.’”81 76 On the purchase in the market of fish that were caught on a religious holiday, see the Maharam of Padova’s response in “Hay lachem zera tzdaka u’she’eilot” (1553), 75, p. 109, 2–110. 77 See note 52 above. 78 Mitzvot Hanashim, 312, 55. 79 Rabbi Yozefa Shamash, Customs in the Holy City of Wermaysa, part 1, 32; Rabbi Menachem Ben Binyamin Miricanti, Ricanti Book (Bologna, 1538; Jerusalem, 1947), p. 60, siman 230. 80 The Book of Pardes to Rashi (ed. Ehrenreich) (New York: Menora—The Institute of the Study of Ancient Manuscripts and Books, 1959), 208–9; The Rashi Prayer Book: Including Decisions and Religious Laws (S. Buber ed.) (Berlin: Y. Freiman, 1922), 181, Section 374. On Rabbeinu Simcha, Rashi’s pupil, see A. A. Auerbach, Baalei Hatosafot, vol. 1, pp. 34–5; Rabbi Eliezer Ben Yoel Halevi, Sefer Rabiah, Including New Decisions and Responsa to the Mishnah (ed. Aptowitzer) (Berlin–Jerusalem, 1938), part 2, section 492, p. 113. 81 Mitzvot Hanashim (1552), paragraph 99.

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Mitzvot Hanashim, which was printed fifty years after the Seder Nashim manuscript from 1504, went to great efforts to preserve the manuscript’s contents82 despite the technical changes in the book, such as a table of contents and alterations in the Yiddish orthography.83 The retention of the manuscript’s contents and style affirms the desire of the book’s publishers to perpetuate the culture and tradition of their forefathers.

82 See Z. Weishouse, “The Characteristics of the Ashkenazi Communities in Northern Italy in the Beginning of the Modern Period” (PhD diss., Ben-Gurion University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Jewish History, 2010), 176–97. 83 A. Romer-Segel, The Women’s Commandments Books in Yiddish in the Sixteenth Century, 35n18.

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CHAPTER 13

The Depiction of Jesus’s Circumcision and Presentation in the Temple in Early Modern Paintings in Venice: Some Questions on Jesus’s Identity* MARIA PORTMANN

INTRODUCTION

T

his article aims to describe the portrayal of Jesus’s circumcision in Venetian paintings of the Renaissance period.1 The research is oriented toward the painters Giovanni Bellini and Andrea Mantegna, who were brothers-in-law, and Tiziano Vecellio (Titian), whose artworks, despite not showing the essential moment of the removal of the foreskin, show the Jewish ritual of circumcision; they painted Jesus’s presentation in the Temple in a similar manner. Regarding their knowledge of Jewish tradition, we do know that Andrea Mantegna painted portraits of Jews, and that Mantegna and Titian portrayed Jewish objects in their paintings. Moreover, Bellini and Titian depicted the circumcision in a different way from Andrea Mantegna and associated it with the presentation

* This article has received the support of the Swiss National Fund. 1 On a halakhic analysis of rabbinic texts on this topic for the fifteenth century, see also Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael: Origins and History ( Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1998–2007), vol. 6, 72 and vol. 7, 331n33.

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in the Temple. These paintings were created for Christian believers, and their reference was the New Testament (Luke 2:21–4): And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord; (As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;) and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.

Regarding the Christian commentaries that circulated in fifteenth-century Venice regarding Jesus’s circumcision, we refer to the sermons of Giacomo della Marca,2 a scholar of Bernardino of Siena (who was preaching sermons in Tuscany at that time).3 He preached against the Jews, accusing them of usury. Giacomo della Marca’s references were meant to emphasize the differences between both religions and to provide evidence for the fact that baptism alone offered the Christians a way to salvation, since circumcision was identified only with the Jews. … tertium quod circumcision figurabat Christum qui erat circumcidendus … ; quartum, quod in loco circumcisionis erat constituendus baptismus in salute populorum.4 … third because the circumcision depicted Christ who was circumcised … ; fourth, because instead of circumcision baptism was invented and set up for the salvation of humanity.

2 Iacobus de Marca / Giacomo della Marca, Sermones Dominicales, ed. Renato Liooi (Ancona, 1978), 113. 3 Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, “Jews and Judaism in the Rhetoric of Popular Preachers: The Florentine Sermons of Giovanni Dominici (1356–1419) and Bernardino da Siena (1380– 1444),” Jewish History 14 (2000): 175–200; Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, Renaissance Florence in the Rhetoric of Two Popular Preachers. Giovanni Dominici (1356–1419) and Bernardino da Siena (1380–1444) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), pp. 11–13. 4 Della Marca, Sermones, Sermo 34, II—Articulus Secundus: quantum ad iudeorum incredibilem obcecationem, 60.

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In his comment, he emphasized that baptism was a kind of secret circumcision of the spirit, and not of the flesh, basing his comment on Paul’s letters.5 Moreover, he linked the earrings worn by Jewish women to men’s earrings and Jewish circumcision. … Sequitur textus: “… execranda autem supersititio ligatarum, in quibus etiam inaures virorum in sumis ex una parte auriculis suspense depuntantur” quas portant ebree mulieres in loco circumcisionis, ut congnoscenrentur ab aliis mulieribus. 6 … the next text follows: “… it is linked to horrible and superstitious things, where men’s earrings hang from the bottom part of the ear,” and therefore the Jewish women wear similar earrings instead of circumcision, so that all may know of it.

In the preacher’s sermons, the circumcision was linked strictly to the Old Covenant and was considered a negative sign, because Jews were understood to be those responsible for Jesus’s death. The subject of Jesus’s circumcision gained importance, however, because a relic of Jesus’s prepuce was circulating among Christians and, on the day the feast was established, they celebrated Jesus’s name. To diminish the unfavorable significance of this scene, the iconography was linked to the presentation in the Temple, which was the feast of the purification of the Virgin, celebrated a month after the child’s birth (Luke 2:21).7 It was a sign to underline Jesus’s belonging to the Old Covenant as mentioned in the Holy Writings since Abraham (Genesis 17:11–14). Indeed, the image of the circumcision is rare in Italian artworks of the Renaissance and has some geographical specificity. In Venice, both communities were closely connected after the construction of the ghetto (from 1516). Christians referred to Jews for commercial and medical purposes.8 Moreover, Diane Owen Hughes mentions that, in Ferrara, Christians also sometimes participated in feasts organized for 5 Ibid., 61–2. 6 Ibid., Sermo 4, I—Questio prima: utrum circa exteriorem apparatum possit esse virtus et vitium, 113. 7 Bernhard Blumenkranz, Le juif médiéval au miroir de l’art chrétien (Paris: Etudes augustiennes, 1966), 88–124. 8 David B. Ruderman, “Medicine and Scientific Thought. The World of Tobias Cohen,” in The Jews of Early Modern Venice, ed. Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 191–7.

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circumcisions,9 despite the fact that the councils forbade Christians to take part in Jewish feasts from 1368 on, even though they knew each other well, since it was not a respected rite. For example, in Venice, as Leon of Modena wrote in his Riti Ebraici at the beginning of the seventeenth century, explaining Jewish practices and describing Jesus’s circumcision for non-Jewish readers: The mohel comes with a plate, upon which are the instruments and things necessary, such as razor, astringent powders, pieces of bandage with rose oil, and some similarly use a bowl of sand in which to place the foreskin, which is cut. … The mohel continues, and, with the mouth, sucks the blood flowing from the wound two or three times and spits it into a glass of wine, after which he places “Dragon’s blood,” coral powder, or things that staunch, and a piece of bandage soaked in rose oil on the cut, and binds and bandages it tightly. He then takes a glass of wine … and bathes the infant’s mouth with the wine into which he had spat the sucked blood.10

In fact, in the following paintings, the circumcision is not depicted as clearly as Leon of Modena’s explanation, because the situation between Jews and Christians was far more complicated than it seemed. In Christian theology, Jesus’s circumcision is regarded as the first sacrifice of Jesus’s body (the last is his crucifixion on the Cross).11 Christian theologians like Catherine of Siena emphasized the blood, which drips (as during the crucifixion) and the form of the foreskin, which recalls the ring given to the humanity in a sign of Alliance.12 This example underlines the complexity of this issue. It focuses on the question

9 Diane Owen Hughes, “Distinguishing Signs: Ear-Rings, Jews and Franciscan Rhetoric in the Italian Renaissance City,” in Past & Present 112 (1986): 15. 10 Leone da Modena, Historia de’ riti hebraici (Venice: Gio. Calleoni, 1638), 95–6; Ariel Toaff, Blood Passover: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders, trans. Gian Marco Lucchese and Pietro Gianetti (2007), 137–57, www.bloodpassover.com (accessed July 2011). On Leon of Modena’s Riti ebraici, Chapter 3 (1647) see Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Zakhor. Storia ebraica e memoria ebraica (Parma: Giuntina, 1983), 57–8; Lawrence A. Hoffman, Covenant of Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996). 11 On the veneration of Jesus’s foreskin in the fifteenth century, see Caroline W. Bynum, “The Body of Christ in the Later Middle Ages: A Reply to Leo Steinberg,” Renaissance Quarterly 39, no. 3 (1986): 399–439 (404n11). 12 On Catherine of Siena’s writings, see Le lettere, ed. Misciattelli, letter 87, II, pp. 90–92 and Catherine of Siena, Le lettere di Santa Caterina da Siena Ridotto a Migilior Lezione, e in Ordine Nuovo Disposte, ed. G. Barbèra (1860), 417.

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of the construction of the identity of Jesus Christ as a Jew who founded another religion.13

GIOVANNI BELLINI The painting depicting The Circumcision attributed to Giovanni Bellini’s school shows a group of people standing behind a stone boundary (Figure 1), around an altarpiece. Men and women stand separately. On the right, a bearded man with brown hair is located behind the high priest. He is wearing white gloves, a dark-colored cloak, and a white shirt. He is holding the old man’s purple cape, and the top of each fold of this cape reflects the light. His dress is sewn from a delicate ivory-colored silk,14 and the collar shows yellow and red pseudo-oriental decorations on a blue background that gleam in the light. His headdress is cut from a striped, rich brownish-yellow damask.15 The edge of his sleeve around his wrist also has geometrical figures embroidered on a green and red background. He is bending over the table and his large beard drops out of sight between his hands, which are placed between Jesus’s loins. His eyes are concentrated on the surgery being performed. With his fingers—the knife is unseen— 13 For a general overview of the depiction of Jesus’s circumcision in European art, see Daniel Santos Arrontes, Mónica Santos Arrontes, and Maria Paz Valer López-Fando, “La circuncisión en el arte religioso,” in Historia de la Urología 58, no. 7 (Arch. Esp. Urol., 2005): 597– 603; on the depiction of the circumcision in Siena during the fourteenth century, see Luciano Bellosi, “La ‘Presentazione al Tempio’ di Lorenzetti,” in AA. VV. Gli Uffizi (Florence: Centro Di, 1984), 12–16; an example taken from the Florentine painting is Fra Angelico, Santissima Annunziata Silver Chest, begun c. 1451–52, tempera and gold on panel (Museo di San Marco, Florence), where we see Jesus’s Circumcision and Presentation to the Temple divided into two scenes. See also Beato Angelico a Pontassieve. Dipinti e sculture del Rinascimento fiorentino, ed. Ada Labriola (Florence: Mandragora, 2010) and Diane Cole Ahl, Fra Angelico (London: Phaidon Press, 2008). 14 For more information on Jews in Italy, see Robert C. Davis, The Jews of Early Modern Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); on the relationship between Jews and Christians in early modern painting, see Dana E. Katz, “Painting and the Politics of Persecution: Representing the Jew in Fifteenth-Century Mantua,” in Art History 23, no. 4 (2000): 475–95; Dana E. Katz, The Jew in the Art of the Italian Renaissance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008); on the image of the circumcision, see Vivian B. Mann, Art & Ceremony in Jewish Life: Essays in the History of Jewish Art (London: Pindar Press, 2005); and Heinz Schreckenberg, Die Juden in der Kunst Europas. Ein historischer Bildatlas (Göttingen Freiburg im Breisgau, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht: Herder, 1996); on fabrics in Bellini’s paintings, see Lisa Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters: Silk Fabrics in Italian and Northern Paintings, 1300–1550 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 174–76. 15 Caroline Campbell and Alan Chong et al., Bellini and the East (London–Boston: London National Gallery Company, Yale University Press, 2005), 30.

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Figure 1 Giovanni Bellini (workshop), The Circumcision, c. 1500, oil on panel, 75 × 102 cm, London, National Gallery, image free of rights: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Bellini-circumcision-NG1455-fm.jpg.

he cuts the foreskin of the baby held by his mother, who stands at the righthand side. This man represents the mohel; between him and the baby Jesus appears another man, Joseph, wearing a red suit. He has a beard and short hair. At the center of the scene, the naked infant rests on a blue cushion. His head is tilted backwards. The anatomy of the baby is finely depicted. His limbs are plump and the position of the elbows forms a small ridge in the middle of the baby’s arm. On the right-hand side, two women stand by the table. The mother of the child wears a light blue scarf on her head. Her dress is red and her belt is green with red stripes. Covering her shoulders, she wears a blue coat. The person on the far right is a young woman wearing a yellow headdress. At the center of the painting is a table covered with a napkin embroidered with white geometrical motifs. In the foreground, a cartellino displays the name of the painter “Ioannes Bellinus” in capital letters. This finely detailed scene depicts Jesus’s circumcision eight days after his birth (Luke 2:21). The dark background does not specify the place. Only the table, in the middle of the scene, relates to an altarpiece. On the one hand, this it is due to the location of the painting, which is hung

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over a real altar in a private chapel.16 On the other hand, for Christians, the dripping blood at the moment of circumcision, when the foreskin is cut, relates to the blood dripping on the Cross, and has a sacrificial meaning for Christians,17 hence the depicted table resembling an altarpiece. This iconography is special because the baby does not sit on the knee of the sandaq18—the godfather—as we can see on miniatures borrowed from Hebrew manuscripts.19 In fact, to underline the link with the purification of the mother in the Temple, Mary holds her child over a kind of altarpiece. The other woman is perhaps the ba’alat brit, who was present at the ceremony since the fifteenth century.20 In Venice, her yellow headdress signified an adherence to the Ashkenazi Jewish community, and her garments, richly embroidered with pearls, indicate a high social status.21 Moreover, during the Renaissance, pearls symbolized Mary’s virginity and Jesus’s virgin birth.22 In a certain way, the composition of Bellini’s painting is a reappraisal of an earlier work depicting the Presentation in the Temple (Figure 2). His knowledge regarding non-Christian elements is certainly due to his close connection to Andrea Mantegna, his brother-in-law, who sojourned in Mantua and Padua. The role and the identity of the figures around 16 The Circumcision was placed in the Pietro Cappello chapel of the Benedictine nunnery in San Zaccaria. Cf. Campbell and Chong, Bellini, 30. 17 On this topic, see note 5. 18 On the role of the sandaq, see Nissan Rubin, The Beginning of Life: Rites of Birth, Circumcision and Redemption of the First-born in the Talmud and Midrash [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Hakkibutz Hameuchad, 1995), 95–8. 19 On this topic, see Thérèse Metzger and Mendel Metzger, La Vie Juive au Moyen-Âge. Illustrée par les manuscrits hébraïques enluminés du XIIIe au XVIe siècle (Fribourg: Office du Livre, 1982), 230; Seder Birkhot Milah, f °118 v (Bonifacio Bembo, Cristoforo de Predis, and Iris Fishof), in The Rothschild Miscellany (London: Facsimile Editions; Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1989); and Shlomo Simonsohn, The Rothschild Miscellany. Historical Background to the Manuscript and Commentary ( Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1989), 176. 20 Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 59. 21 For the colors worn by Jews in Venice, see Benjamin Ravid, “From Yellow to Red: On the Distinguishing Head-Covering of the Jews of Venice,” in Jewish History 6 (1/2) (1992): 179– 210; for women wearing pearls, see Gabrielle Langdon, Medici Women. Portraits of Power, Love and Betrayal from the Court of Duke Cosimo I (Toronto–Buffalo–London: University of Toronto Press, 2006), 85; Patricia B. Phillippy, Painting Women: Cosmetics, Canvases, and Early Modern Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 166–8; Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid, eds., The Jews of Early Modern Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Ravid, “From Yellow to Red,” 179–210. 22 On this topic, see Nadia Ibrahim Fridrikson, “La perle, entre l’océan et le ciel. Origines et évolution d’un symbole chrétien = The Pearl, between Ocean and Sky: Origins and Evolution of a Christian Symbol,” in Revue de l’histoire des religions 220, no. 2 (2003): 283–317.

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Figure 2 Giovanni Bellini, The Presentation in the Temple, 1460–65, 80 × 105 cm, oil on panel, Venice, Fundation Querini Stampalia, image free of rights: http://www.wga.hu/art/b/bellini/giovanni/1460-69/037prese.jpg.

the infant who is being circumcised should be compared with those displayed in the Presentation of the Temple. However, Bellini’s iconography of the Presentation in the Temple involves different protagonists and only the figures mentioned in Luke 2:22–7 have a halo around their heads. There are two women on the left-hand side, and two men stand on the right-hand side, behind a green marble parapet. Joseph appears between Mary and Simeon, and a younger man observes him. The infant Jesus wears a red bonnet. Mary’s headdress is white, and her dress is less precious than in The Circumcision. In fact, Diane Owen Hughes has noticed a small hole in Mary’s elongated ear lobe. This pierced body part is intended for the wearing of an earring, as we have commented in Giacomo della Marca’s sermon.23 In Diane Owen Hughes’s article, she interprets the hole in the ear not merely as a sign of Jewish identity, since only Jewish women wore 23 Hughes, “Distinguishing Signs,” 58; for other earrings worn by Jewish women in Western art, see Denis Bruna, Piercing, sur les traces d’une infamie medieval (Paris: Textuel, 2001); and Penny Howell Jolly, “Learned Reading, Vernacular Seeing: Jacques Daret’s Presentation in the Temple,” The Art Bulletin 82, no. 3 (2000): 428–52.

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earrings before the fifteenth century,24 but the earring worn by Mary in Christian art also has various meanings. In addition to her Jewish identity, it portrays her oriental origins and interprets her persona as the church (Mater Ecclesia), as indicated by Bernard of Clairvaux.25 As mentioned, all the other figures are portraits of Giovanni Bellini’s family: the man behind Simeon looking at the viewer has been interpreted as a self-portrait of Giovanni Bellini, and the other figures seem to be portraits of his brother Gentile, his sister Nicolosia who married Andrea Mantegna, and their mother.26 The red headdress worn by both women is problematic, therefore, because this color was attributed to Sephardic (i.e., Spanish) Jews in Venice, whereas Bellini’s family was Christian.27 In Bellini’s Presentation in the Temple, the figures displayed around the biblical characters are different from those he portrays in The Circumcision. In the latter, he emphasizes the Jewish ritual by introducing a woman with a yellow headdress. Moreover, he shows only the gesture of the mohel, whose oriental dress asserts the foreign origin of the Jews. The Presentation in the Temple, in contrast, shows a close relationship between believers and the characters displayed in the scene, because his family was Christian. However, the Presentation in the Temple draws attention to Jesus’s identity, since his mother was considered an important Christian character for believers. Therefore, the interpretation of the red color is not as clear as it seems to be, because Christian women wore red. Furthermore, Bellini’s framing of both images is similar to that used by Andrea Mantegna in his Presentation in the Temple. Regarding The Circumcision, Mantegna does not show the Jewish rite itself, but displays the objects used by the mohel.

24 Ibid., 21; see also Peter Bell, Dirk Suckow, Gerhard Wolf, Fremde in der Stadt: Ordnungen, Repräsentationen und soziale Praktiken (13.–15. Jahrhundert) (Frankfurt a. M / Bern [etc.], P. Lang, 2010), 267. 25 On this complex topic, see Duncan Robertson, “The Experience of Reading: Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘Sermons on the Song of Songs’ I,” in Religion & Literature 19, no. 1 (1987): 1–20. 26 Oskar Bätschmann, Giovanni Bellini (London: Reaktion, 2008), 83–4. 27 Ravid, “From Yellow to Red,” 180–86; David Jacoby, “Venice and Venetian Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean,” in Gli Ebrei e Venezia. Secoli XIV–XVIII, proceedings of the international conference organized by the Isituto di storia della socità e dello stato veneziano della Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venezia ( June 5–10, 1983), ed. Gaetano Cozzi (Milano: Di Comunità, 1987), 29–59.

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Figure 3 Andrea Mantegna, The Presentation in the Temple, c. 1455, Distemper on linen, 69 × 86 cm, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, image free of rights: https:// fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Présentation_au-Temple_(Mantegna).

ANDREA MANTEGNA Andrea Mantegna’s Presentation in the Temple (Figure 3)28 shows the upper half of figures inserted into a marble frame. The mother, child, father, and high priest have haloes around their heads. This detail underscores the difference between them and the other two people. On the left-hand side, there is a woman wearing a yellow veil; this color was attributed to Jews and prostitutes in Italy as a distinguishing and negative sign.29 The boy is a passerby and could be a mendicant, such as those 28 For the depiction and the date, see Ingeborg Walter, “La Presentazione di Gesù al Tempio di Andrea Mantegna,” Civiltà Mantovana 27, no. 5 (December 1992): 7–27; Mauro Lucco and Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa, Giovanni Bellini (Milano: Silvana Editoriale, 2008), 105–11 and 176; Bätschmann, Giovanni Bellini, 88–90. 29 Jens J. Scheiner, Vom Gelben Flicken zum Judenstern?: Genese und Applikation von Judenabzeichen im Islam und christlichen Europa (849–1941) (Frankfurt a.M: P. Lang, 2004), 90; and Hughes, “Distinguishing Signs,” 17, 21–2.

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portrayed in the Temple in other paintings of the Renaissance period.30 Mary’s dress is made of silken damask with floral motifs, like Simeon’s cloak. She leans her elbow on the border of the frame and holds her child. The edge of the cushion under Jesus’s feet protrudes over the painted marble frame: this foreshortening is evidence of Mantegna’s artistic skills and the fact that the scene is depicted behind a feigned window. It enhances the optical relationship between the viewer and the subject of the painting. It is important to emphasize this detail because it was significant for the believers’ spirituality to have the impression of being closer to the religious scene. However, in Mantegna’s picture, Simeon wears a black headdress—a non-Jewish color in Venice (Figure 3). As Benjamin Ravid has explained, only Jewish doctors and merchants with a special permit could wear black, which was a color generally reserved for Christians.31 This sign enhances the complex identity given by Christians to Simeon, whose prophecy announces the death of Christ. The floral embroideries on Simeon’s clothes are shaped in the form of a pomegranate—as on the mohel’s cloak in Bellini’s Circumcision (Figure 1). This detail is interesting because it is similar to the tiraz robes worn exclusively by caliphs. This detail emphasizes his foreign and oriental32 origin.33 The edge of the robe is decorated with a tiraz border bearing a pseudo-Arabic inscription in a stylized geometrical script. Since tiraz robes were originally worn exclusively by caliphs, they retained connotations of prestige and rulership.34

Oriental garments and Jewish distinguishing signs are also present in another scene of the circumcision painted by Mantegna (Figure 4). The iconography and composition of this picture differ completely from the one depicted by Bellini as it was not meant to be seen alone; Mantegna’s Circumcision is depicted on the right panel of a triptych dedicated to the Adoration of the Magi. As we will see, Mantegna’s Circumcision displays ritual objects just before the removal of the foreskin, while Bellini’s painting displays a special interest for 30 On the depiction of the poor in Venice, see T. O. Nichols, “Secular Charity, Sacred Poverty: Picturing the Poor in Renaissance Venice,” Art History 30, no. 2 (2007): 139–69. 31 Ravid, “From Yellow to Red,” 183. 32 On oriental fabrics in Western art, see Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters, 174–6. 33 On the influence of the Orient in Bellini’s paintings, see Campbell and Chong, Bellini; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (2005). On the stay of Bellini’s father in Istanbul, see Meyer J. Zur Cappelen, “Gentile Bellini im Orient,” in Europa und die Kunst des Islam 15. bis 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Oleg Grabar (Wien–Köln–Graz: Hermann Böhlaus, 1985), 137–45.  34 Campbell and Chong, Bellini, 30.

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Figure 4 Andrea Mantegna, The Circumcision, 1462–64, Distemper on panel, Triptych, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, image free of rights: https:// commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrea_Mantegna_The_Circumcision_ WGA13957.jpg.

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Jewish rituals and lifestyle, with greater emphasis on garments and the moment of circumcision.35 If Bellini depicts the moment of the circumcision without showing the knife or the foreskin, Mantegna chooses the moment prior to the event. Leon of Modena mentions most of the details presented in this scene in his Riti hebraici cited in the introduction.36 All the characters stand in a Renaissance interior. The scene is divided into two parts, separated by a marble column. The women and children stand on the right-hand side, and the men on the left. In the foreground, a young woman touches a child’s hair. She directs her look to the central scene. Behind her, an old woman wears red clothes. Both have headdresses and mantles in black, white, and grey colors. The old woman wears a piece of linen on her forearm. This group stands in front of a door. Mary holds her child in her arms. She wears a blue coat over a red dress, and her head is covered with a fine white veil. In the middle of the scene, the priest wears a linen dress, a cape with oriental motifs, which refers to the dress analysis above, and a Jewish prayer shawl that is recognizable from the fringes (tsitsit) and the black horizontal lines. He turns his head toward the child. In his right hand, he clasps a knife. In front of him, a young man in a white pleated robe offers him a tray, containing a bandage and scissors. In the background, there is a vase with wine for the ceremony. Joseph holds two turtles in a basket (as mentioned in Exodus 13:12 and Leviticus 12:8). He wears a yellow coat over a red garment, and sandals. In the background, two lunettes show biblical scenes on either side of the column. On the right-hand side, Moses holds the two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God,37 and an angel interrupts Abraham’s actions on the left-hand side.38 Both scenes allude directly to Jesus’s obedience to the Law and to his human sacrifice on the Cross, where he died.39 The portrayal of the angel holding back Abraham’s 35 Moses holds a scroll with the year of the Jewish calendar in Bellini’s The Transfiguration. See Bätschmann, Giovanni Bellini, 119. 36 Joseph Manca, Andrea Mantegna and the Italian Renaissance (New York: Parkstone, 2006), 83; for a deeper analysis, see Jack Matthew Greenstein, Historia in Leon Battista Alberti’s On Painting and in Andrea Mantegna’s Circumcision of Christ (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1984); Jack Matthew Greenstein, Mantegna and Painting as Historical Narrative (Chicago–London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992); the painting was made for Luca Fancelli, for the Gonzaga’s chapel in the castle of Mantua. Cf. Maria Bellonci, Andrea Mantegna (Milano: Skira, 2003), 112. 37 Exodus 31:18. 38 Genesis 22:1–13. For a more thorough reading of non-Christian sacrifice, read F. Saxl, “Pagan Sacrifice in the Italian Renaissance,” Journal of the Warburg Institute 2, no. 4 (April 1939): 346–67. 39 For a better understanding of this painting, see Greenstein, Mantegna and Painting, 193–7; for a special reading of the reliefs, see Sabine Blumenröder, Andrea Mantegna—die Grisaillen:

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knife can be related to a rabbinic tradition, in which the removal of the foreskin is seen as a substitute for the sacrifice of the whole child.40 Another interesting detail is the positioning of the ritual objects. The knife, scissors, bandage, and wine are shown under Abraham’s representation, and the linen cloth is shown beneath the scene with Moses, recalling the covenant to the Old Law. As we stated in the introduction, Jesus’s blood has a redemptive signification for Christians, and the removal of the foreskin implies the soul’s salvation. To understand better the use made of these objects during the circumcision, we refer to some Hebraic miniatures from fifteenth-century Italy.41 In the Parma Manuscript, the sandaq is the person who holds the baby. The baby’s lower clothes are removed. The mohel holds the baby’s penis and the knife. We find another interesting image in a Siddur of the Spanish rite of the late fifteenth century. The circumcision is depicted on the left-hand side while, on the right-hand side, a man holds two jars with wine to pronounce the blessings.42 In fact, these objects also have another meaning for a Christian believer, as they are linked to the Mass, celebrating the death and resurrection of Christ through transubstantiation, a doctrine whereby the priest consecrates the wine and bread into the Blood and the Body of Christ.

ARTISTIC, ANATOMICAL, AND RELIGIOUS IMPLICATIONS The importance of the blood and the knife held by the mohel emphasize the moment when the foreskin is removed. This detail has not only religious significance but also dwells on the artist’s interest in the human body. On the one hand, we know that Mantegna and Bellini had a special interest in anatomy, because their scholars made engravings for the first illustrated anatomical treatise.43 On the other hand, Andrea Mantegna also practiced dissections in Padua (as mentioned by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists),44 and he could have met Jews Malerei, Geschichte und antike Kunst im Paragone des Quattrocento (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verl, 2008), 83–93; for Jesus’s obedience to the Law, see Greenstein, Historia, 56–102 and 62. 40 Glick, Marked in your Flesh, 60. 41 Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, Ms. 3596, f °268. 42 Carré art Bibliothèque, Nîmes, Ms. 13, folio 181 v in Natalia Berger, Jews and Medicine: Religion, Culture, Science (Tel Aviv: Beth Hatefutsoth, The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora [cat. exp.]; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1997), 17. 43 William M. Ivins Jr., “The Ketham of 1493,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 34, no. 2 (1939): 44–7; A. Hyatt Mayor, “Artists as Anatomists,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series 22, no. 6 (February 1964): 201–10; Bätschmann, Giovanni Bellini, 38. 44 Les vies des meilleurs peintres, sculpteurs et architectes, Book 4, trans and ed. Giorgio Vasari and André Chastel (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1984), 246; Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et

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studying medicine there. Moreover, the prior of the Hospital of Saint Francis in Padua45 wrote a letter to Bartolomeo d’Urbino in which he mentions that Mantegna performed two autopsies between 1452 and 1453, at the time he was commissioned to create the altarpiece of San Luca.46 His anatomical skills and the foreshortening are also evident in another painting that remained in his workshop until his death, which depicts the Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Figure 5).47 This painting is also relevant to our topic, as it emphasizes the blood.48 In the Lamentation, the stone on which Christ is lying is the Epitaphios,49 which was reddened by the blood that dripped from Jesus’s body. The red stone was preserved as a relic until the fifteenth century. Moreover, a link was created between the red stone and the depiction of the altarpiece. For example, in Bellini’s Circumcision (Figure 1), Christ is depicted on a table, recalling the Epitaphios. For a Christian believer, this detail is identified as an altarpiece where the mass is celebrated. As the removal of the foreskin is carried out in place of a human sacrifice, the breaking of the bread

45 46 47

48 49

scultori italiani, da Cimabue, insino a’ tempi nostri, Book 4, ed. Giorgio Vasari, Luciano Bellosi, Aldo Rossi, and Giovanni Previtali (Torino: Einaudi, 2005); Sheryl R. Ginn and Lorenzo Lorusso, “Brain, Mind, and Body: Interactions with Art in Renaissance Italy,” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 17, no. 3: 295–313. On the hospital that supplied the University of Padua with corpses for anatomical dissections, see David B. Ruderman, “The Impact of Science on Jewish Culture,” in Gli Ebrei, ed. Cozzi, 421. Silvana Collodo, “Religiosità ed assistenza a Padova nel Quattrocento. L’ospedale e il convento di San Francesco dell’Osservanza,” in Il complesso di San Francesco Grande in Padova. Storia e arte 1 (Padova: Signum Edizioni, 1983), 31–57, 503n114. Peter Humfrey, The Cambridge Companion to Giovanni Bellini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 71; Gabriele Finaldi, “Mantegna, Andrea,” in Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T053902 (accessed May 4, 2011); Heinz Schrade, “Ueber Mantegnas Cristo in Scurto und verwandte Darstellungen. Ein Beitrag zur Symbolik des Perspektive,” in Neue Heidelberger Jahrbücher, NF (1930): 77; Francesco Caprara, “Anatomie esemplari,” in Rappresentare il corpo: arte e anatomia da Leonardo all’Illuminismo, ed. Giuseppe Olmi and Fulvio Simoni (Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2004), 171; Charles Singer, “Notes On Renaissance Artists And Practical Anatomy,” in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 5, no. 2 (Spring 1950): 156; Colin Eisler, “Mantegna’s Meditation on the Sacrifice of Christ: His Synoptic Savior,” Artibus et Historiae 27, no. 53 (2006): 9–22; Andreas Prater, “Mantegnas Cristo in Scurto,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 48, no. 3 (1985): 279–99. Schrade, “Ueber Mantegnas Cristo in Scurto,” 77. Prater, “Mantegnas Cristo in Scurto,” 294.

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Figure 5 Andrea Mantegna, Dead Christ, c. 1500, tempera on canvas, 680 x 810 mm, Milano, Pinacoteca di Brera, image free of rights: https:// commons.m.wikimedia.org/.

and the transubstantiation of the bread and the wine replace the crucifixion and the resurrection symbols of human salvation as emphasized by Mantegna in his painting of the Circumcision (Figure 4). I would also point out that, in Christian tradition, the relics of Jesus’s prepuce were of great significance and were carried in a procession on the feast day of the Circumcision, on January 8.50 Relics were stored near altarpieces where they could be venerated and therefore were linked to the symbols of the Mass. But Bellini shows only the hand of the mohel and the eyes of every person present focusing on the surgery. In fact, in the eastern part of Italy, during the Renaissance, painters never showed Jesus’s circumcised penis. 50 Sergio Bertelli, Il re, la vergine, la sposa: eros, maternità e potere nella cultura figurativa europea (Roma: Donzelli, 2002), 55.

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Figure 6 Piero della Francesca, De prospectiva pingendi, 15th century, Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, ms Parmensis 1576, f° 69r, image free of rights: https:// commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/De_Prospectiva_Pingendi.

Because of the strong foreshortening, which also reflects anatomy lessons, Vasari regards this painting as a prominent example of Cristo in scurto.51 This foreshortening is based on mathematical and geometrical skills, highlighted by Vasari as a special characteristic of Mantegna’s work.52 His interest is comparable to how Piero della Francesca’s treatise describes the De Prospectiva Pingendi after 1450 (Figure 6).53 Mantegna’s knowledge is displayed in all his paintings, enhancing the impression of reality and giving the viewer the impression that what is depicted is as close and the most lifelike possible to the believer, as intended in the framing of the three first paintings by Mantegna and Bellini showing half-sized figures. 51 Giorgio Vasari, op. cit., Book V, pp. 203–6. 52 Vasari, ibid. 53 See Judith Veronica Field, Piero della Francesca. A Mathematician’s Art (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005); Roberta Iotti, “Piero della Francesca e Andrea Mantegna: Urbino e Mantova. Stagioni del Quattrrocento Italiano,” in Mantegna, ed. Mauro Bini (Modena: Il Bulino ed. d’Arte, 1992), 139–51, and Civiltà mantovana 27, nos. 3 and 5 (1992): 139–49.

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Only Mantegna depicted portraits of Jewish people, the Norsa family, on the Pala of the Madonna of the Victory.54 The Norsa family is recognizable from a yellow circle affixed to their garments, the familiar distinguishing and negative mark, which is completely different—similar to the colored headdresses we saw in the biblical scenes. Regarding Bellini’s and Mantegna’s Presentation in the Temple, it is suggested that Jesus’s body is circumcised, which is also the case in Mantegna’s Cristo in scurto. The loincloth covering his genitals enhances his human nature.55 This detail is interesting because it means that, for a Christian believer, Jesus’s body has some anatomical details that can be seen (his death wounds), and others that cannot be seen (his circumcised penis)—but are hinted at. Both are intended to define Jesus’s complex identity.

TIZIANO VECELLIO Some years later, Tiziano Vecellio (Titian) also depicted Jesus’s Circumcision in a predella (Figure 7). In fact, he went further than his predecessors. On the righthand side, Mary stands in prayer, veiled in a yellow headdress. Behind her, an opened window shows a blue sky. The mohel is depicted on the left-hand side, clasping the knife in his hands. A woman and the godfather both hold the child. They show the viewer the child’s uncircumcised penis. Finally, a man wearing an orange cloak holds a vase with the wine. All the characters are observing the “surgery.” Although the rite is depicted clearly, Titian paints with “blotches,” which give the impression that the painting is unfinished. This “non finito” appearance results from the impasto technique used by the artist. His rendering is not done randomly but is in fact carefully applied. Particularly linked with Venice, this technique, the colorito, implies the supremacy of the color over the drawing (disegno).56 The blotches give the painting a unique materiality that will be important for this painter. It gives the human body a special carnality, which is emphasized by the anatomical portrayal, the choice of colors, and the distribution

54 This painting is discussed in Dana E. Katz, “Painting and the Politics of Persecution: Representing the Jew in Fifteenth-Century Mantua,” Art History 23, no. 4 (2000): 475–95. 55 Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996). 56 Gudrun Rhein, Der Dialog über die Malerei: Lodovico Dolces Traktat und die Kunsttheorie des 16. Jahrhunderts: mit einer kommentierten Neuübersetzung (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 2008).

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Figure 7 Titian, Circumcision, c. 1509, oil on panel, 37.5 x 79.3 cm, New Haven, Yale, University Art Gallery, image free of rights. Photo credit: Yale University Art Gallery.

of light.57 Moreover, we know that Jan Stefan Calcar,58 one of Titian’s students, participated in the preparation of the illustrations for Vesalius’s treatises.59 To highlight his importance, and the fact that Jews and Christians were in contact, we should stress that Vesalius’s Fabrica was translated into Greek and Hebrew. This edition was created thanks to Lazaro de Frigeis, Vesalius’s Jewish friend in Venice.60 The vocabulary is taken from the Canon of Avicenna, who translated Galen’s texts, and also the Talmud.61 Titian’s fascination with the human body is shown in the image of the naked child, where his technique emphasizes the smooth aspect of the baby’s skin. 57 Daniela Bohde, Haut, Fleisch und Farbe—Körperlichkeit und Materialität in den Gemälden Tizians (Emsdetten: Ed. Imorde, 2002), 28–32. 58 Karel van Mander, Le livre des peintres. Vies des plus illustres peintres des Pays-Bas et d’Allemagne, vol. I (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2002), 102. 59 André Vésale, De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (Basileæ: ex officina Ioannis Oporini, 1543); André Vésale: Andreæ Vesalii Bruxellensis, scholæ medicorum Patauinæ professoris suorum, De Humani corporis fabrica librorum Epitome (Basileæ: ex officina Ioannis Oporini, 1543); Jacqueline Vons and Stephane Velut, André Vésale. Résumé de ses livres sur la Fabrique du corps humain (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2008). 60 Cynthia Klestinec, “A History of Anatomy Theaters in Sixteenth-Century Padua,” Journal of the History of Medicine 59 (2004): 401, online: http://jhmas.oxfordjournals.org/content/59/3/375.full.pdf (accessed July 2011); David Jacoby, “Venice and Venetian Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean,” in Gli Ebrei, ed. Cozzi, 29–59; Berger, Jews and Medicine, 98. 61 Andreas Vesalius of Brussels: 1514–1564, ed. Charles D. O’Malley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), 120; Jacob Shatzky, “On Jewish Medical Students of Padua,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 5 (1950): 444–47.

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Moreover, he sets his scene over a table that, for a Christian believer, could be regarded as an altarpiece. The mohel’s gesture is regarded here as in Mante­ gna’s painting, and the sacrificial aspect of this scene is therefore increased. In contrast to his predecessors, Titian does not accentuate the oriental origins of the biblical figures but relies on their strictly Jewish background. The mother’s figure is interesting because she acts as a Christian believer in front of Jesus’s image, yet, at the same time, gives the observer a clue to Jesus’s origins. He is a descendant of David, and will be circumcised like his predecessors.

CONCLUSION The depiction of Jesus’s circumcised body has unique features, showing the ritual as a covert practice carried out by foreigners adhering to the Old Covenant (Figure 7). Mantegna’s depiction of the Circumcision (Figure 4) reflects a sacrificial ritual, and emphasizes the question of Jesus’s and his family’s religious and geographical identity. In the Presentation in the Temple, Mantegna (Figure 3) and Bellini (Figure 2) present these questions through the focus of the garments and colored headdresses. The depiction of Jesus’s body by Mantegna, Bellini, and Titian is linked to their knowledge of anatomy and non-Christian religious traditions. They underline the issue of Jesus’s identity as related to the Old Covenant and in Giacomo della Marca’s preaching. In addition, the portrayal of Mary’s pierced earlobe and yellow headdress in both scenes underscores Jesus’s identity. A further link between both scenes has to do with the question of Jesus’s physical sacrifice. The removed foreskin shows the child Jesus as a human being, while Simeon’s prophecy intimates to the believer that, through his death, something different will happen and that his identity will be considered in a different way. Titian, therefore, shows Mary clasping her hands in prayer, because for the Christian believer Christ has a second identity—a divine one.

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CHAPTER 14

Freemasonry and SaintSimonism as Carriers of Enlightenment Values in David Levi’s Weltanschauung* ALESSANDRO GRAZI

D

avid Levi, author, politician, and Risorgimento activist, is an interesting case of a nineteenth-century secular and liberal Jew whose view of the world in general and of Judaism in particular has been strongly shaped by Enlightenment values of universalism and cosmopolitism. Not unlike other liberal thinkers of the 1800s, he was able to combine these ideals with coeval instances of nationalism, at the base of the Risorgimento movement, in his case, and elaborate a cosmopolitan nationalism based on a universal “Religion of Humanity.” The same universalist values were used by Levi for a more in-depth analysis of modern Jewish identity or, specifically, of his own secularized Jewish identity. Investigations of modern, secular declinations of a multifaceted concept, such as that of Jewish identity, are still insufficient.1 Yet, such examinations are necessary

* A previous, different version of this chapter is A. Grazi, “The Role of Italian Jews in Freemasonry and Secret Societies during the Risorgimento. The Case of David Levi,” in Believers in the Nation —European Religious Minorities in the Age of Nationalism (1815–1914), ed. R. Dagnino and A. Grazi, in “Groningen Studies in Cultural Change” (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 77–96. The present version, however, contains a much deeper analysis of Enlightenment ideals within Freemasonry and a whole new section on Levi’s Saint-Simonism, which was entirely absent in the previous version. 1 Two analyses of secular Jewish identities in the Italian case are the following C. Facchini, David Castelli Ebraismo e scienze delle religionitra Otto e Novecento (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2005); and L. Levi D’Ancona Modena, “Prospero Moisè Loria: A Case Study of Jewish Secularism in Liberal Italy,” Jewish History (2018) 31: 263–90.

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for a deeper and more complete grasp of the multiplying and diverse answers modernity has brought to the question: Who is a Jew? This chapter wishes to contribute to the analyses of modern, secular Jewish identities, by investigating the sources of David Levi’s enlightened, secular thought. In particular, I will attempt to answer these questions: Which role did Freemasonry and SaintSimonism have as harbingers of Enlightenment values for David Levi? How did they contribute to his formulation of a modern, secular Jewish identity? David Levi was born in 1816 in Chieri, a town close to Turin, in Piedmont, the engine of the Risorgimento.2 He was raised in a traditional and religious family and received an education that combined the elements of Jewish tradition with those of Piedmont’s bourgeoisie, in which patriotic values and Risorgimento rhetoric were prominent. Levi attained this type of dual education not only within his family but also at the Foa Institute of Vercelli where, in addition to studying the Hebrew language and traditional Jewish subjects, he acquired a deep knowledge of Italian history and literature. As a young man, he abandoned the traditional and religious dimensions of Judaism; nevertheless, he remained strongly attached to his Jewish heritage throughout his life, a fact that clearly emerges from his oeuvre. He constantly (and successfully) tried to amalgamate the Italian and the Jewish sides of his identity. He grew up in a highly acculturated environment, where Enlightenment ideals played a fundamental role, also thanks to the fact that his grandfather, David Levi Senior, occupied a prominent political position during the so-called “first emancipation,” acquired by Piedmont’s Jews during the Napoleonic conquest of that region.3 It is understandable how Enlightenment values were a shared positive family memory. This setting translated into strong support for the Risorgimento movement, which was seen by the Levis and by several other Jews of the time as an opportunity to remove all legal obstacles to the achievement of full civil emancipation, after the Restoration’s juridical regression. For Levi, as for a part of Italian Jews, the quest for civil equality coincided with the stirrings of the Risorgimento.4 2 For a biography of David Levi, see A. Grazi, “David Levi—A Child of the Nineteenth Century,” in Portraits of Italian Jewish Life (1800s–1930s), ed. T. Catalan and C. Facchini, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History 8 (2015): 21–7. 3 In Piedmont, this took place between 1798 and 1814. On this see A. Milano, Storia degli Ebrei in Italia (Turin: Einaudi, 1963), 342–51. 4 The Italian Jews’ participation in the Risorgimento is under reassessment, in particular through a more complete analysis of literary and documentary sources, and through a more precise consideration of the relevant political and cultural differences of the different regions of pre-unified Italy. See A. Grazi, “Divergent Jewish Approaches to Italian Nationalism and Nation-Building,” in “The New Italy and the Jews: From Massimo D’Azeglio to Primo Levi”,

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Enlightenment universalist values permeated all of Levi’s writings, including his views on patriotism and nationalism. Levi’s Enlightenment of reference did not originate within Jewish circles, that is, the religious approach of Moses Mendelssohn and Naphtali Herz Wessely, the fathers of the Haskalah. Rather, he was indebted to the secular French Lumières. Levi’s first awareness of Enlightenment ideals took place during his studies in Tuscany and Paris in the 1830s and 1840s. Pisa and Livorno were the settings of his early encounter with his political-philosophical creed, the socialist-utopian Saint-Simonian ideas of Giuseppe Montanelli’s circle, and his affiliation with Freemasonry and Giovine Italia. In Paris, Levi followed courses at the Collège de France by renowned scholars such as Pierre Paul Royer-Collard, Pellegrino Rossi, Edgar Quinet, and Jules Michelet. These philosophers enriched his sociopolitical ideas, reinforcing his Saint-Simonism and Enlightenment universalism. Most importantly, they fundamentally influenced his views on the history of Judaism and the historical Jesus. In this chapter, therefore, I will focus on Freemasonry and Saint-Simonism as the two main vessels of Enlightenment ideals in Levi’s experience. Both associations provide key answers about the type of Enlightenment Levi was referring to and the exact role it played in his views of the world and of Judaism. Let us start with an examination of Freemasonry. When talking about Freemasonry, we need to be cautious. In fact, it is always important to bear in mind that Freemasonry is not a monolithic organization.5 From its inception and throughout its developments, it became more and more fragmented, and its historical expansion generated a number of different lodges, each with its own rules and rituals, technically known as Rites.6 Thus, it would be more ed. L. S. Lerner and J. Druker, Annali d’italianistica vol. 36 (2018); Tullia Catalan, “Italian Jews and the 1848–49 Revolutions: Patriotism and Multiple Identities,” in The Risorgimento Revisited—Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy, ed. Silvana Patriarca and Lucy Riall (Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, 2012), 214–31; E. Schächter, The Jews of Italy 1848–1915—Between Tradition and Transformation (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2011). 5 On Freemasonry in general and its fragmentation, see F. Conti, ed., La Massoneria a Livorno— Dal Settecento alla Republica (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006); M. C. Jacob, Living the Enlightenment—Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); and A. Trampus, La massoneria nell’età moderna (Bari: Laterza, 2001). 6 For more detailed insight into Freemasonry’s different Rites, ranks, and symbolism, refer to É. Saunier, Encyclopédie de la Franc-Maçonnerie (Paris: Hachette, 1999); L. Troisi, Dizionario massonico: esoterismo, ermetismo, religioni, miti, simboli (Foggia: Bastogi, 1988); J. Boucher, La Symbolique maçonnique (Paris: Dervy, 1948); A, Panaino, “Rito e ritualità nella tradizione massonica tra storia e antropologia,” in La Massoneria, Storia d’Italia, Annali 21, ed. G. M. Cazzaniga (Turin: Einaudi, 2006), 753–70.

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appropriate to talk of Freemasonries7 rather than Freemasonry, or better yet, different Masonic Rites and lodges. To clarify this concept, it is opportune to briefly illustrate the historical origins, developments, and organization of European Freemasonry. Chronologically, it evolved out of late sixteenth-century British and Scottish guilds of stonemasons. They underwent a transformation throughout the 1600s and by the end of the same century no longer held the status of guilds but became more conceptual and political associations.8 There is no shared opinion, however, on how or why this evolution from guild to conceptual, esoteric, and political society took place. In any case, initially Freemasonry was clearly a British phenomenon, immersed in a late seventeenth-century British social and political framework that had emerged out of the 1640 and 1688 revolutions.9 Its internal organization and rhetoric were therefore an attempt to reconstruct a democratic environment in micro: its members held elections, voted for any decision and aimed to accept members from different social layers, and, unlike their surrounding society, were even legislators and constitution makers. For this reason, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Freemasonry has been considered as an early cell of modern civil society or, in other words, a place where the Enlightenment was concretely lived and experienced,10 in some cases avant la lettre. Nevertheless, Freemasonry’s internal structure was divided into several levels of power. This strong hierarchy led early Freemasonry to reproduce an ancien régime order,11 in spite of its democratic structure and rhetoric. But there was one substantial difference: the hierarchy was based on merit and election, not on birth. This proto-democratic structure should not get us sidetracked from the historical time frame we are considering. In early modern Europe, even an officially open-minded association like Freemasonry did not escape the Zeitgeist, and entire layers of the population were excluded 7 As suggested in Trampus, La massoneria nell’età moderna, 4. 8 On the development of Freemasonry out of British guilds more in detail, see especially D. Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry. Scotland’s Century, 1590–1710 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Very good insights can also be found in Jacob, Living the Enlightenment, 35–46; and Trampus, La massoneria nell’età moderna, 7–16. 9 A popular foundation myth of Freemasonry maintains that Oliver Cromwell was the founder. However, without denying the post–English Revolution democratic spirit in which early British Freemasonry was immersed, recent scholarship denies any direct linkage between Freemasonry and Cromwell’s revolution. See Jacob, Living the Enlightenment, 24. 10 Ibid., 3–22. 11 Ibid.

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from its membership, including the poor, illiterate, uneducated, women, and non-Christians, with some exceptions. Even the network of Freemasonry associations was hierarchically subdivided into lodges, whose activities and Rites ideally had to be approved by a socalled “mother lodge,” which was the most important lodge in each country. All mother lodges, again ideally, had to be accepted by the founding mother lodge in Great Britain, The Grand Lodge of London. Theoretically, this was the way Freemasonry was supposed to be structured globally. As we will see, this was not always the case in practice, especially from the moment in which the Masonic lodges were exported from Great Britain to the Continent. In Continental Europe, this early democratic model was still ahead of the times in the late seventeenth and almost throughout the entire eighteenth century. This made Freemasonry an attractive and modern association, leading to its rapid spread across the Continent, which closely followed the British model.12 By the 1750s, virtually every country in Europe had at least one Masonic lodge. Little by little Grand National Lodges appeared, guaranteeing the loyalty of all the lodges in each country to the Grand London Lodge. Newly founded lodges generally had to abide to the aforementioned organizational scheme. Understandably, the diffusion and fragmentation of Freemasonry favored the establishment of “deviating” lodges, which stood on their own, or of entirely new Rites, which started new lines of affiliation with new lodges. Historically, the different Masonic Rites generated not only a diversification of rituals but also of principles and criteria for the acceptance of new members, including policies for accepting non-Christians. Despite their claims to cosmopolitanism and universalism, most European Masonic lodges de facto did not accept Jews or non-Christians in general, up to the end of the eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries.13 The relationship between Jews and Freemasonry, especially in the nineteenth century, has been studied by the pioneering work of Jacob Katz.14 Since then, we have witnessed an increasing number of studies analyzing this relationship, in particular concerning German and French Jewry.15 12 On the diffusion of Freemasonry in Continental Europe see Jacob, Living the Enlightenment, 73–95, focusing on France and the Netherlands; and Trampus, La massoneria nell’età moderna, 27–36, focusing on German-speaking areas. 13 J. Katz, Jews and Freemasons in Europe 1723–1939 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 11–26. 14 Katz, Jews and Freemasons. 15 See for instance L. Nefontaine and J. P. Schreiber, Judaïsme et franc-maçonnerie. Histoire d’une fraternité (Paris: Michel, 2000) and S. L. Hoffmann, “Brothers or Strangers? Jews and Freemasons in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” in German History 18, no. 2 (2000): 143–61.

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This research, however, is far from exhaustive and requires further scholarly efforts, in order to present a more complete picture of the role played by European Jewry in Freemasonry and of the situation prevailing in each country. The situation was apparently more liberal in Great Britain and the Netherlands, where we know that some Jews were accepted already in the first half of the eighteenth century.16 Even there, however, the presence of Jews in Masonic lodges was rare and problematic, at least up to the 1790s.17 For instance, the existence of an entirely Jewish and unrecognized lodge in Amsterdam in the 1750s shows that Jewish participation in official lodges was anything but obvious.18 In other countries, like Germany or France, the presence of numerous Christian lodges and the sociocultural environment made it even more complicated—if not impossible—for Jews to be accepted into Masonic lodges throughout most of the nineteenth century. These lodges often had a hostile or even an openly antisemitic attitude toward Jews.19 Nevertheless, European Freemasonry accepted the integration of non-Christians more quickly than society as a whole.20 As the Masonic lodges little by little allowed Jews to become members, the Jewish population grasped the opportunity of participating in European Christian society by becoming freemasons, often before the full official acquisition of civil rights. With regard to Italy, it emerges that the acceptance of Jews within the Italian Masonic lodges dates back further than in most European countries,21 as we will see, with the exception of the Netherlands and Great Britain, as aforementioned. The few studies so far published concerning European Jews in Freemasonry have focused on three main aspects. The first is a sociohistorical reconstruction of Jewish participation in such sects, aimed at establishing the extent and reasons for their affiliation with Freemasonry. Among these works, we can list Jacob Katz’s research, which regarded Freemasonry as one of the first places of encounter between Jews and modernity or, in other words, as one of the first milieus where Jews experienced acceptance and emancipation before obtaining full civil rights.22 The other two aspects in this field of research have come to the 16 Katz, Jews and Freemasons, 11–26; and Jacob, Living the Enlightenment, 173. 17 Ibid., 173. 18 Ibid., 102. 19 Ibid., 181; and Katz, Jews and Freemasons, 11–26. 20 Ibid., 1–10. 21 C. Francovich, Storia della massoneria in Italia. Dalle origini alla Rivoluzione francese (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1974), 62–3. 22 Katz, Jews and Freemasons, 1–10.

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fore more recently. One of them concerns Italian Jews in particular and is related to the currently discussed theme of Freemasonry as one of the sources of the secret societies of the Risorgimento. During the Risorgimento, many Jewish freemasons—like a large number of the non-Jewish freemasons—were also members of other secret societies. An insight into the Jewish perspective helps corroborate the hypothesis of continuity between Italian Freemasonry and the Risorgimento’s secret societies. The final aspect falls within the analysis of secularization processes. According to this view, some highly acculturated Jews, in their process of secularization, did in fact abandon Judaism as a religion and tradition, but somehow substituted it with the universal, social, and egalitarian principles of Freemasonry. Some research on the Italian Jews and Freemasonry deals precisely with this point,23 which will be the point of departure of the present analysis. As mentioned above, a number of Italian Jews supported the Risorgimento on many different levels. Among them, we witness an increase in the affiliation with Freemasonry and other secret societies, as they were one of the most direct ways of participating in the national movement. In the context of the Risorgimento, Italian Freemasonry in fact shifted its commitment from the basic goal of improving society and individuals to the specific political purpose of cooperating with the national movement and the other secret societies involved. This shift in Italian Freemasonry’s direction is still largely unclear and is undergoing thorough scholarly assessment, particularly concerning its dynamics. Precise data on the numbers involved and historical development of Jewish participation in Masonic lodges is lacking, but it is nevertheless possible to get an idea of the phenomenon from the sources. As aforementioned, the Italian situation preceded that of most of the European countries (Germany and France in particular) but was similar to that of the Netherlands and Great Britain. In fact, we have knowledge of Jewish presence in local lodges in Venice and Livorno already in the 1770s, well before the civil emancipation in any of the Italian territories. The evidence of this consists of a responsum given by Rav Hayyim David Azulai of Tunis in 1774 against the possibility of condemning Jewish freemasons to death. This responsum referred to certain Italian Jews.24 23 F. Sofia, “Il vangelo eterno svelato: David Levi e la massoneria,” in Massoneria e Unitá d’Italia—La Libera Muratoria e la costruzione della nazione, ed. F. Conti and M. Novarino (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2011), 203–22; and F. Sofia, “Gli Ebrei risorgimentali fra tradizione biblica, libera muratoria e nazione,” in La Massoneria, Storia d’Italia–Annali 21, ed. Gian Maria Cazzaniga (Turin: Einaudi, 2007), 244–265. 24 Katz, Jews and Freemasons, 180.

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The presence of these Jews in this particular Masonic lodge does not mean that Jewish acceptance in Italian Freemasonry was necessarily widespread at this time but signifies that, probably under certain conditions, it was not entirely forbidden. It is important to bear in mind that effective Jewish presence in Italian Masonic lodges probably predated this document by a few years. The number of Jewish freemasons in Italian lodges increased then after the “first emancipation,”25 thanks to the new temporary legal situation that facilitated the Italian Jews’ participation in Masonic lodges. This was also favored by the increased number of lodges, which were often opened by French army officials.26 In the Italian peninsula, perhaps more than in other European countries, Masonic lodges provided a place where Jews could make their first entrance into general civil society.27 The Restoration, as we have seen, added a further reason for the Italian Jews to join the Masonic lodges: their wish to fight for Italy’s unification as a means to re-obtain the full civil emancipation they had enjoyed in Napoleonic times. It appears that, in spite of the legal regression of 1814–15, the number of Jews in the few remaining Masonic lodges was still abundant, if not actually increased.28 After this necessary brief premise, let us now come to the role of Freemasonry as carrier of Enlightenment values for David Levi. The point of departure for this discussion is an analysis of the reasons that led the Italian Jews to join Freemasonry and other secret societies during the Risorgimento. Certainly, the possibility of experiencing effective integration with non-Jews played an important role. In all likelihood, however, the most concrete element pushing Italian Jews to join various secret societies was the perceived efficacy of these societies in liberating and uniting Italy, leading them to their ultimate goal: civil emancipation. This, at least, according to his forceful account, is what David Levi believed: 29 Io era smanioso di arruolarmi nelle fratellanze segrete. Esse sole, mi credeva, potranno offrirmi mezzi, armi, compagni, aiuto per adoprarmi all’indipendenza e libertà d’Italia, per conquistarmi una patria. 25 26 27 28

Sofia, “Gli Ebrei risorgimentali,” 246–7. Ibid., 246. Ibid., 247. G. Salvadori, Gli ebrei toscani nell’etá della Restaurazione (1814–1848) (Florence: Centro Editoriale Toscano, 1993). 29 Quotation from the unpublished pamphlet La Carboneria, written by David Levi himself and conserved in his private archive, folder 30.6.14 (2) at the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento, Turin, 1.

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However, there is no doubt that, before the Risorgimento, Freemasonry was mainly a place of integration not just for Italian Jews, but for all the few European Jews who were admitted to the lodges; a feeling of what we might call “pre-emancipation” pervaded the Jewish brothers. In other words, based as they were on the illuminist values of humanity and equality, not only for their members but also for all mankind, some lodges became a welcoming environment for the Jews. They could relate there to the other members on an equal basis, and seek positions they could only hope for in the “real” society outside of Freemasonry. Universalism and cosmopolitanism also seem to have been appealing features for some Italian Jews during the Risorgimento. If the fight for independence and emancipation was their first motivation to join the secret societies, universalism and cosmopolitanism made them feel welcome and at ease within sectarian life. This must have been particularly evident in port cities like Livorno, where David Levi was initiated. In fact, there he encountered many types of people:30 capitani di bastimenti, marinai, viaggiatori d’ogni nazione: Francesi, Inglesi, Levantini vi capitavano ogni giorno e trovavano nelle Logge asilo, sussidi, amici, consigli, che la Massoneria è cosmopolita; suo principio e scopo è l’affratellamento di tutti i popoli senza distinzione di razze, di credenze religiose. [ships’ captains, mariners, travelers from every nation: Frenchmen, Englishmen, Orientals happened to be there every day and found shelter, aid, friends, advice in the Lodges, since Freemasonry is cosmopolitan: its principle and goal is a brotherhood of all peoples, with no distinction of race and religious belief.]

It clearly emerges how, for David Levi, Freemasonry’s cosmopolitan environment was a major element of attraction. This is evident also from his stressing the importance of religious freedom. However, this universalistic setting was not a characteristic of all the secret societies, but mainly of Freemasonry. This is where the differences between Freemasonry and the other secret societies of 30 Ibid.

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the Risorgimento, like Carboneria, are more evident. Freemasonry had a more general and humanistic purpose, while Carboneria focused on political goals.31 Levi once again gives a clear explanation of this concept:32 La Carboneria, come accennammo, era una ramificazione della Massoneria. Se nonché questa era un’associazione umanitaria, che mirava pure a fondare una nuova religione umana, contrapposta alle antiche, l’altra si proponeva uno scopo politico e limitato, l’indipendenza nazionale … [Carboneria, as already mentioned, had its roots in Freemasonry, but the latter is a humanitarian association that also aimed at founding a new human religion, in opposition to the ancient ones, while the former had a more limited political purpose, national independence …]

Here, Levi introduces the idea of a “human religion,” a key concept in our discussion on Freemasonry as a vessel of Enlightenment ideals. From Levi’s words, it appears that he (and, we can hypothesize, other secular Jews as well) found in Freemasonry not just a means to fight for Italy’s independence, not just a cosmopolitan environment where he could feel welcome, but also a whole set of universal principles that perhaps resembled in his mind the religious Judaism he had abandoned, and could provide a suitable alternative to it. It has been argued that Freemasonry’s Jewish members were attracted by its secret, mysterious, and ritual nature, and its objective of creating this “human religion” that would replace all the old religions and unite humanity under the worship of science and reason.33 Jewish secularization modes are a studied phenomenon that took place throughout the nineteenth century as one of the outcomes of the encounter between Judaism and modernity. I use the term “secularization modes” in the plural, because secularizing processes took place in different ways and led to different outcomes. In some cases, these processes brought some Jews to total agnosticism or indifference. In certain situations, however, we may argue that a secularization process did not lead to atheism and indifference, nor to a proper conversion, but simply signified the replacement of one religion with an

31 On the Carboneria, see J. Rath, “The ‘Carboneria’: Their Origins, Initiation Rites, and Aims,” American Historical Review 2 (1964); and G. M. Cazzaniga, “Origini ed evoluzioni dei rituali carbonari italiani,” in La Massoneria, Storia d’Italia, Annali 21, ed. G. M. Cazzaniga (Turin: Einaudi, 2006), 559–78. 32 Levi, La Carboneria, 4. 33 See, for instance, Sofia, “Gli Ebrei risorgimentali,” 249.

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alternative, albeit equivalent, set of ideals and values, yet supported by secular foundations. It might not be appropriate to call the ideals of Freemasonry a new kind of religion for the secularized Jews who were initiated into it, but David Levi certainly wrote about Freemasonry with strongly religious connotations. He earnestly believed in the concept of Freemasonry as a new “human religion.” Thus, Risorgimento’s secret societies like Carboneria had more limited political goals, while Freemasonry had a more universal purpose. What then brought David Levi to join also Giovine Italia? The young Jewish author was in search of something that could unite both goals, an association that fought for Italy’s independence and freedom but at the same time would consider how future society should be structured. This association, believed Levi, was Giovine Italia:34 Mazzini riusciva a fondere insieme i due principi, quello religioso e quello politico, proclamare la religione della patria il culto d’Italia, fonderli sintetizzati in una formula, che ne abbracciasse il concetto religioso e la costituzione politica e proclamò come domma: “Dio e Popolo per l’Italia; Dio e l’Umanità, per tutte le nazioni e quale fondamento della civiltà futura.” [Mazzini managed to blend the two principles together, religion and politics, to proclaim the religion of the homeland as Italy’s cult, to synthesize them in one formula, which could embrace both religious concepts and political constitution, and proclaimed as a dogma: “God and People for Italy; God and Humanity for all nations and as a foundation of future civilization.”]

Clearly, Mazzini was inspired by Christian values and spoke of a Christian God. Levi, though of course aware of this fact, reinterpreted Mazzini’s Christian connotation of the Giovine Italia, in a “human” and universal key. The concept of replacement and opposition of the Masonic ideals to the “ancient religions” is here clear and refers not just to Judaism, but to all the religions of the world. Therefore, one of the possible outcomes of secularization from a Jewish perspective in the nineteenth century was not its abandonment, but a kind of replacement of one religion ( Judaism) with new, different humanist and universalist ideal. It has been pointed out how a number of values present in the theoretical apparatus of Freemasonry were shared by Reform Judaism, so that in Germany 34 Quotation from David Levi’s private archive, folder 30.6.14 (2) at the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento, Turin.

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and the United States, for instance, almost all the rabbis belonging to the Reform movement were also Freemasons.35 In Francesca Sofia’s words, Freemasonry and the Reform movement shared36 “stessa valorizzazione dell’elemento universale, identica supremazia della morale sulla fede, simile valorizzazione dell’individuo sull’elemento comunitario, identica promozione dell’azione sociale filantropica …” [“the same high consideration for the universal element, identical preeminence of morals over faith, similar attribution of a higher value to the individual than to the community, identical promotion of social and charitable actions …”]. The main feature they shared was certainly their universal approach, represented in practice by the Noachic laws, which were the core both of Freemasonry’s humanistic ideals and Reform Judaism’s Weltanschauung. In Italy, reform instances did not take the form of a systematically organized movement, like in Germany, due to the fundamentally Orthodox nature of Italian Judaism.37 For this reason, in some cases, scholars have argued that Freemasonry played the role that the Reform movement played elsewhere.38 For our purposes, it is not so important to verify whether this happened in a larger scale. We do see, however, that, just like the Reform movement, Freemasonry too carried universalist values within it, which David Levi reused as a basis for his Religion of Humanity, and also interpreted as foundations of original Judaism, as we will see. Now that we have illustrated the reasons why, for an Italian Jew in general and for David Levi in particular, secret societies and Freemasonry held a strong appeal during the Risorgimento, we can delve a little more deeply into Levi’s activity within these sects. This Italian writer and politician did not merely participate passively in Italian Freemasonry, but, as in all other sectors of his life, tried to leave an important trace of his presence and to play a leading role within the lodges. This is a crucial element for our analysis, and that is why it deserves examination. The purpose is to bring further evidence that, for Levi, Freemasonry 35 The shared elements between the Reform movement and Freemasonry are pointed out by Katz, Jews and Freemasons; M. A. Meyer, Response to Modernity. A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); Nefontaine and Schreiber, Judaïsme et franc-maçonnerie; and Sofia, “Gli Ebrei risorgimentali,” 250–52. 36 Quotation from ibid., 250. 37 A discussion on the reasons why Reform Judaism was not organized as a movement and deeply rooted in Italian Judaism is not the purpose of this paper. However, it is important to point out that recent studies have shown that in Italy reform instances were a lot more present than previously thought. In this respect, see A. Salah, L’epistolario di Marco Mortara (1815–1894). Un rabbino italiano tra riforma e ortodossia (Florence: Giuntina, 2012). 38 Sofia, “Gli Ebrei risorgimentali,” 250–52.

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and other secret societies did not only have a practical and political importance during the Risorgimento but also kept playing a fundamental role as bearers of ideas, and as a tool to diffuse such ideas as much as possible. As such, in Levi’s view Freemasonry was not simply an instrument for the achievement of contingent political results, albeit large and relevant such as Italy’s unification, but was eminently Political, in a more universal sense of the term, that is, as a general indicator of an ethical direction and, if necessary, as a flywheel for political change. His activity within Giovine Italia and Freemasonry can be divided into two phases. The first phase, during the specifically military period of Risorgimento, was characterized by intelligence, coordination, and informational operations: he often traveled undercover around the Italian peninsula and abroad to pass on information and organize military expeditions, while simultaneously cooperating with political journals. The second phase, after Italy’s unification, was mainly political, and that is the part in which we are interested. This phase is described in some of his works, and scholars’ attention has been focused mainly on his political role within the Grande Oriente Italiano (Italian Grand Orient) in Turin, which would become Italy’s first national Masonic organization in 1859.39 Long after his initiation into Freemasonry and Giovine Italia in Livorno in the 1830s, Levi’s name is to be found among the first members of Ausonia, a Masonic lodge established in Turin in October 1859, representing the new starting point of fervent Masonic activity in Italy after the aforementioned interruption following the Restoration.40 This same year, in December, this lodge promoted the institution of an Italian national Freemasonry, leading to the formation of the Grande Oriente Italiano. Levi’s involvement as one of the protagonists of this transition was twofold: he contributed strongly to the debate on the sociopolitical program of the new national Freemasonry and acted as Gran Segretario (Great Secretary) during its first years of activity. Levi struggled his entire life, more or less successfully, to give Italian Freemasonry a socialist orientation, in line with his Saint-Simonian views, as we will see later. Levi’s efforts to draft an innovative socialist program for Italian Freemasonry began publicly through a series of articles that appeared in the philosophical periodical 39 F. Conti, “La rinascita della massoneria dalla loggia Ausonia al Grande Oriente d’Italia,” in Massoneria e Unitá d’Italia—La Libera Muratoria e la costruzione della nazione, ed. F. Conti and M. Novarino (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2011), 111–44. 40 For an excellent recent contribution, see ibid., 111–44. A classic text on the Ausonia lodge is P. Buscalioni, La loggia Ausonia ed il primo Grande Oriente Italiano (Cosenza: Brenner, 2001), originally written in 1915.

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La Ragione41 (The Reason), then edited by his friend Ausonio Franchi.42 In the 1850s, Levi got to know of a Belgian Masonic lodge, “Les Philadelphes” of Verviers, which had a quite progressive reformist program, partly sharing his Saint-Simonian views. Once he obtained their political program, he had it published in La Ragione, under the title Nuovo programma dei Liberi Muratori (The Freemasons’ New Program).43 Although this program contained proposals for Belgian Freemasonry, which held historically progressive positions, as the scholar Comba informs us, Levi wished to extend these positions to Italian Freemasonry and to Italy as a whole.44 Among the most important proposed reforms, there were lower fiscal demands, a decreased state budget, the repeal of military service, the abolition of clerical privileges, the promotion of workers’ associations, and the establishment of public banks.45 Many of these points coincide also with the Saint-Simonian outlook. It is therefore not surprising that Levi attempted to introduce them into the program of the Grande Oriente Italiano. Initially, the debate on Freemasonry’s program took place on the pages of La Ragione, but Levi took the first opportunity he had to promote his ideas within the newly founded national Freemasonry and to exert pressure on its members, in order to define its political orientation. At the first national constitutional assembly of all twenty-three lodges belonging to the Grande Oriente Italiano in December 1861, he made an important speech, attempting to leave a socialist mark on the future constitution of Italian Freemasonry.46 This speech was apparently impressive in terms of passion and historical knowledge, but 41 The debate on Freemasonry that took place on the pages of La Ragione is reconstructed in M. Novarino, “Felice Govean. Dalla ‘Gazzetta del popolo’ al Grande Oriente Italiano,” in Massoneria e Unitá d’Italia—La Libera Muratoria e la costruzione della nazione, ed. F. Conti and M. Novarino (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2011), 165–202. 42 Ausonio Franchi (Pegli 1821–Genoa 1895) was the pseudonym of Cristoforo Bonavino, an important Risorgimento intellectual. An ex-Catholic priest, Franchi was rather active as a writer on philosophical and political journals. He was a strong advocate of rationalist and socialist ideas and himself a Freemason. Due to his political affinity with David Levi, they became good friends. 43 La Ragione, 70, February 16, 1856. 44 On Levi’s acquaintance with this Belgian lodge, see A. Comba, “Giuseppe David Levi profeta del Risorgimento,” in Isacco Artom e gli Ebrei Italiani dai Risorgimenti al fascismo, ed. A. A. Mola (Foggia: Bastogi, 2002), 114. 45 See ibid., 114. 46 This speech was printed with the name “Programma massonico adottato dalla Massoneria Italiana risocstituita, presentato al G.O.I. nella seduta della V. L. 5861 dal Gran Segretario David Levi, Turin, 1861,” and was reported in its entirety and discussed in M. Novarino and G. M. Vatri, Uomini e logge nella Torino capitale. Dalla fondazione della loggia “Ausonia” alla rinascita del Grande Oriente Italiano (1859–1862) (Turin: L’Etá dell’Acquario, 2009), 321–28.

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did not entirely obtain the political goals for which Levi had hoped. Nevertheless, this speech remained his most notable act within the Grande Oriente Italiano and has become a cornerstone in the history of this important lodge and, to a certain extent, of Italian Freemasonry as a whole. Levi’s efforts to influence Italian Freemasonry’s political orientation continued in 1862. He tried to have Giuseppe Garibaldi elected as Grand Master, which would have assured a turn toward the left for Italian Freemasonry. His attempt failed once again however, and the Grande Oriente Italiano maintained its moderately liberal direction. Perhaps disheartened by his constant failures to steer Italian Freemasonry toward more progressive views, we find Levi enlisted among the members of Concordia (“harmony”), a lodge in Florence with a progressive bent.47 After having examined Freemasonry as a carrier of Enlightenment values and David Levi’s political influence within it, let us now turn to Saint-Simonism. Saint-Simonism was a utopian and radical form of socialism developed by the French philosopher Henri de Saint-Simon, which became popular in France in the 1820s. Its inception can be considered a letter that Saint-Simon wrote to the European princes and leaders gathered in Vienna for the Congress that wiped out the Napoleonic era and started the process of Europe’s Restoration.48 Levi deemed this letter as a sort of introduction to the Saint-Simonian manifesto, which would have appeared later. In this letter, published in 1815, SaintSimon strongly attacked the reactionary resolutions of the Congress of Vienna, claiming they radically opposed the Enlightenment principles. Saint-Simonism aimed at creating a free, equal, and just society, in which women, artists, and scientists would play a prominent role. It constituted Levi’s political framework throughout his entire life.49 According to the doctrine, as it was called, peoples would be united following a universal “religion of humanity.” Levi was interested in both the social and the religious aspects of this doctrine, but he focused on the universal nature of this new religion. In so doing, he once again placed himself within an existing contemporary trend of scholars, both Jews and Christians, who, inspired by Enlightenment ideals, wished to rewrite the history

47 These last developments are clarified also in A. Comba, “Giuseppe David Levi,” 115–16. 48 H. de Saint-Simon, Oeuvres de Saint-Simon. Lettres aux Princes, au Pape et Le Nouveou Christianisme (Paris, 1841), 182, entirely reported in the Italian translation from the French original in D. Levi, “Prima fase del socialismo in Italia: il Sansimonismo,” in Nuova Antologia vol. LXIX, Serie IV (Fascicolo 1, giugno 1897), 12. 49 Grazi, “David Levi,” 21–7; Sofia, “Gli Ebrei risorgimentali,” 253.

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of religions,50 including Ernest Renan and Joseph Salvador, who were SaintSimonians and constituted important cultural points of reference for David Levi. Possibly, Saint-Simonism’s strong foundations in the Lumières favored the involvement of several Jews, at least among the first adepts.51 For the Italian case, we do not have evidence of a proportionally large Jewish participation in Saint-Simonian circles, although it is not unlikely. Saint-Simonism’s evident roots in the Enlightenment, therefore, made it for Levi a rather attractive doctrine to follow, especially if we think that he got acquainted with it during the enthusiastic period of his Tuscan studies, thanks to the encounter with Giuseppe Montanelli, one of Italy’s first Saint-Simonians.52 At the time and place in which the encounter between David Levi and both Freemasonry and Saint-Simonism took place, i.e., Tuscany in the 1830s, the two circles certainly had different political purposes, but shared similar universalist views including that of a religion of humanity. According to Levi, just like Saint-Simonism, Freemasonry too “era un’associazione umanitaria, che mirava pure a fondare una nuova religione umana, contrapposta alle antiche” [was a humanitarian association, which also aimed to found a new religion of mankind, opposed to the ancient ones].53 And furthermore,54 non si arresta , né si limita, come il socialismo attuale, ad una classe, ma abbraccia l’uomo nelle sue molteplici manifestazioni, e ne deduce un programma teorico e pratico pel futuro assetto sociale. [it does not stop and limit itself to one social class, like current socialism, but embraces man in its multiple manifestations, and deduces from it a theoretical and practical program for the future social order.] 50 Facchini, “David Castelli,” 18–20. 51 On Jews in French Saint-Simonism see Z. Szajkowski, “The Jewish Saint-Simonians and Socialist Antisemites in France,” in Jewish Social Studies 9, no. 1 (1947): 33–60. 52 Not much has been written on Saint-Simonism in Italy. An exception is the classic by R. Treves, La dottrina sansimoniana nel pensiero italiano del Risorgimento (Turin: Edizioni Giappichelli, 1973). On the figure of Montanelli, see S. Rogari, ed., Giuseppe Montanelli—Fra storia e storiografia a 150 anni dalla scomparsa (Florence: Edizioni Polistampa, 2013). 53 Levi, La Carboneria, 4. 54 Levi, “Prima fase del socialismo,” 14. Levi embraced Saint-Simonism in the early 1830s, as we have seen, but wrote this pamphlet in 1897, toward the end of his life. Often in this treatise and elsewhere he complained about the developments of socialism throughout the nineteenth-century and its materialist and class-clash orientation. He never explicitly mentions Marx, but his polemics seem to be directed exactly at Marxist socialism and other radical forms such as communism. We should not forget that David Levi belonged to a wealthy bourgeois family.

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Convinced that society could never completely give up religion, Saint-Simon came up with a religious synthesis, New Christianity, which would become the universal religion of humanity. However, as Levi explained without hesitation, this religion did not retain any aspects of Christianity and, in fact, was later renamed by Saint-Simonian adherents as a generic new universal religion.55 This concept is reminiscent of the Masonic Weltanschauung,56 as examined earlier. Levi certainly found familiar elements in both Freemasonry and Saint-Simonism, fulfilling his great need for spirituality after he abandoned the religious side of Judaism. In a word, both Saint-Simonism’s and Freemasonry’s concept of a “Religion of Humanity” helped Levi create a synthesis between the Enlightenment’s aspirations to universalism and the Risorgimento’s cosmopolitan nationalism. A discussion on Saint-Simonism’s role as a new religion, as a replacement for Levi’s Judaism, and as one of the outcomes of his process of secularization, is as appropriate as it was for Freemasonry and Giovine Italia. In this case, the writer himself supports our efforts with a strong opening statement concerning the beginnings of this philosophical system in France and then in Italy:57 Il Sansimonismo fu sistema religioso e sistema sociale. I suoi fondatori predicavano non potersi produrre una riforma negli ordini sociali, senza ravvivarla con un corrispondente innovamento religioso; é l’anima che sostiene, rinnova il corpo, l’immaginazione, le passioni piú ancora che le finzioni politiche, i bisogni materiali, che trascinano le masse. [Saint-Simonism was a religious and social system. Its founders preached that you could not bring forward a reform of the social structure, without brightening it up with a corresponding religious renewal; it is the soul that supports and renovates the body, the imagination, the passions but even more the political functions, the material needs, which drag the masses.]

This religious aura persists also in Levi’s description of the infrastructure and activities of the first Italian adherents of Saint-Simonism. Its followers were described as “apostles,” its meeting place and organization as a “church,” its leaders

55 Levi, “Prima fase del socialismo,” 17–23. 56 Jacob, Living the Enlightenment, 147. 57 Levi, “Prima fase del socialismo,” 11.

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as “priests,” and the philosophy itself as a “creed.” In fact, one of the founders of Saint-Simonism in Italy embraced this philosophy through a “conversion”:58 Egli si convertí al Sansimonismo, i suoi entusiasmi si comunicarono e convertirono alla nuova fede numerosi giovani fra la scolaresca di Pisa, fra uomini maturi e gli esuli che avevan trovato asilo in Toscana e si costituí una societá, o diremmo una Chiesa, religiosa ed a un tempo politica e sociale. … a Pisa si facevano frequenti conferenze sulle dottrine sansimoniane, si raccolse un uditorio numeroso ed entusiasta, si aprí e si consacró un tempio di cui il Montanelli era apostolo e sacerdote. [He converted to Saint-Simonism, his enthusiasm was spread around and converted many young people among Pisa’s students to the new faith, but also among grown men and exiles who found political asylum in Tuscany, so that they constituted a society, or I should say a Church, which was religious and at the same time political and social. … Frequent conferences on the Saint-Simonian doctrines were held in Pisa; a numerous and enthusiastic audience was gathered and they opened and consecrated a temple, whose apostle and priest was Montanelli.]

According to Levi,59 Tuscany’s intellectuals saw in Saint-Simonism’s principles a great affinity with the social ideas of the ancient Florentine society and a religious view, which had a lot in common with the thought of what he called Italian “reformist philosophers.” Now that we have seen how Freemasonry and Saint-Simonism acted as carriers of David Levi’s Enlightened thought, we only need to answer one more question. How did these ideas impact his view of Judaism?60 The amalgamation of his Enlightenment approach and his study of Judaism is evident in his conviction that Enlightenment values pre-existed the Enlightenment itself and were already present in original Judaism, whose principles were preserved and announced by the prophets. In his unpublished comedy, “Il mistero delle tre melarancie,”61 Levi notably expresses this concept in a poetic form.62 His character 58 Ibid., 7. 59 Ibid., 7. 60 An elaboration on Levi’s view of Judaism mediated by Enlightenment values can be found in Grazi, “Divergent Jewish Approaches.” 61 D. Levi, Il Mistero delle Tre Melarancie, unpublished comedy conserved in the Folder 31.4–12 of his private archive, at the National Museum of Risorgimento, Turin. 62 A. Grazi, “In Quest of a ( Jewish) Identity: David Levi’s Il Mistero delle Tre Melarancie,” Zutot—Perspectives on Jewish Culture 9 (2012): 97–110.

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Isaac Laquedem, a personification of the Wandering Jew who here represents Judaism in general, describes the establishment of ancient Israel as a territorial entity and its fight against the local peoples:63 Isacco Laquedem. Vano riusciva il richiamarli alla ragione. Li combattei nelle loro città, nelle case e nei templi, rovesciai gli altari di topazio e di sangue e nella loro rovina sollevai il tempio al Dio di giustizia, fratellanza e pace, al Dio uno, aperto a tutti i popoli della terra. [Isaac Laquedem. In vain I tried to direct them toward reason. I fought them in their cities, homes, and temples; I overturned their topaz and blood altars and on their ruins, I raised a temple to the God of justice, brotherhood and peace, to the one God, open to all the Earth’s Peoples.]

The influence of the French Revolution’s slogan, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, can be heard here along with other Enlightenment emphases on reason and principles “open to all Peoples of the Earth.” In the introduction to his Ahasverus, Levi maintains that these same principles were then spread around Europe and the world by the American and French revolutions and constituted the “religious and social essence” of Judaism: God, the Law, and the People.64 The main characteristic of these three founding elements of Judaism and of modern society is their universal dimension, which makes them valid “for every race, for every time,” in the words of Levi’s character Ahasverus.65 While it is true that the French Revolution was secular by default and respected all religions, Levi writes in this introduction, it is also true that it contemplated the existence of one superior being, “One God,” maker of the universe. The cult of the Revolution was the Law, which 63 Levi, Il Mistero delle Tre Melarancie, 105. 64 D. Levi, Ahasvero nell’isola del diavolo: Versi, preceduti da uno studio sull’ebraismo e la rivoluzione francese (Turin: R. Streglio, 1898), 22. 65 Ibid., 18

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orders the universe by pursuing equality and justice and by tearing down the barriers of difference among the citizens. By abiding by these convictions, Levi argues, ancient Israel became the “Switzerland, the Holland, … the first real democracy of antiquity,” in words that echo Michelet and Renan.66 Thus, the Jews did not encounter Enlightenment values for the first time via the Revolution, but already possessed them within their own tradition: “Avvenne quindi, che alla proclamazione dei principi della Rivoluzione, l’Ebreo acquistò più viva la coscienza di sè stesso, vide in essi la riprova e la confermazione di quella fede religiosa sociale, che fu la sua forza durante i secoli e, diremmo, la ragione della sua durata.”67 In this way, Levi tackles one of the issues that had been the common denominator in all debates among European Jews throughout the entire century: Is the essence of Judaism defined by nation or religion? It is defined by neither, he concludes. The Italian intellectual offers a normative and idealist definition of Judaism as a set of universal principles, reawakened and reiterated by the French Revolution. In conclusion, this article has offered a contribution to an understanding of the role Freemasonry and Saint-Simonism played as carriers of Enlightenment values in David Levi’s worldview. Through Levi’s oeuvre, I have attempted to show how his Enlightenment of reference was not the Haskalah of Mendelssohn and Wessely, and thus a specifically Jewish, traditional Enlightenment, but rather the French Lumières, mediated by his mentors in Pisa and Paris at the time of his studies in the 1830s and 1840s. The article has tried to show that the vessels through which these values were transported into Levi’s world were the secret associations of Freemasonry and Saint-Simonism. Their concept of Religion of Humanity helped Levi create a synthesis between Enlightenment´s aspirations to universalism and Risorgimento’s cosmopolitan nationalism. The first part of the article, dedicated to Freemasonry, illustrated how, after their initial acceptance in some of the Italian Masonic lodges in the late eighteenth century, Italian Jews increased their participation and influence within them. In the nineteenth century, when Freemasonry focused in particular on the national Risorgimento movement, the affiliation of Jews increased substantially, and, in a similar fashion, Jews also increased their contribution to other secret societies that had Italy’s unification as their goal. Historiography has 66 Ibid., 13. The idea of Israel as the first democracy of antiquity was not only present in the cited Michelet and Renan but was a common feature in the French historiography of the time. 67 Ibid., 23.

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concentrated mainly on three aspects of Jewish participation in Freemasonry and secret societies: the historical development and extent of Jewish involvement in European Masonic lodges; the simultaneous participation of a large number of Jews in Freemasonry and in Risorgimento’s secret societies, such as Carboneria and Giovine Italia; and the spiritual and religious role played by Freemasonry’s universalism in the secularization process of some Jews. For the essay’s purposes, I have tackled the latter. It has emerged that, for the nineteenth-century Italian Jew, Freemasonry and the other secret societies could represent an ideal place for the attainment of equality. If Freemasonry, with its cosmopolitism and universalism, promised equality “here and now” within the lodge, patriotic associations like the Giovine Italia or Carboneria promised equality in the future. In other words, although the original goals of Freemasonry and the secret societies differed, the first aiming at a global restructuring of society and religion, and the second having a more specific political goal, ultimately their offer of equality for the present and for the future represented a strong element of attraction for the Italian Jews. I have also offered an overview of David Levi’s specific role within these secret societies. It appears that his influence within them increased over the years and skyrocketed after Italy’s unification with the creation of a national Freemasonry. Within this framework, Levi was always politically active, in particular in his attempts to change its orientation toward his socialist views, without great success. The second part of the paper concentrates on Saint-Simonism, showing how it helped reinforce the same universalistic values propagated by Freemasonry, also thanks to the fact that some of the influential teachers Levi had in his Parisian experience were themselves Saint-Simonian. As a utopian socialist doctrine, Saint-Simonism had its very foundation immersed in Enlightenment ideals and, together with Freemasonry, constituted for Levi a crucial carrier and mediator of these values with his life of secular Jew. In this respect, the paper’s final argument is that both Freemasonry and Saint-Simonism played a crucial role in Levi’s secularization process and in defining his own secular Jewish identity. According to Levi, Enlightenment’s universalistic values pre-existed in original Judaism. The modern Jew, in his view, did not simply happily embrace these principles for political convenience (democratization and achievement of civil equality) but recognized in them exactly those values that were foundational of Judaism, and that had partly been lost in its historical development. Believing in the universal Religion of Humanity, maintained the Italian author, was for the modern Jew a way to reaffirm his own Judaism, at least in ideal, secular terms.

CHAPTER 15

The Unique Characteristics of Dybbuk Exorcisms in Rabbinic Documents from Eighteenth-Century Italy YANIV GOLDBERG

INTRODUCTION

A

ccording to the psychoanalytic perception, “Dissociative Identity Disor  der” (DID), also known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a mental disorder characterized by at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality states that alternately control a person’s behavior, and is accompanied by memory impairment for important information not explained by ordinary forgetfulness. These symptoms are not accounted for by substance abuse, seizures, other medical conditions, or fantasy behavior in children.1 DID is a mental process that provides protection to the individual dealing with traumatic situations. Failure of integration of ideas, information, and feelings occurs because their assimilation is unbearable for the ego. Isolation is created, and thus a separation from difficult emotions and consciousness about these issues results.

* This essay was written with the support of the Ashkelon Academic College, and is an expanded version of my essay: “‘Ruakh Iveem’—The Unique Characteristics of the Rabbinic Document of a Dybbuk Exorcism in Italy” [in Hebrew], Daat 76 (2014): 215–30. 1 American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–IV (Text Revision) (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2000–2006), 526–29.

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Before the nineteenth century, it was believed that people exhibiting symptoms similar to these were possessed. By its nature, the dybbuk phenomenon belongs to the cultural category of “possession,” which refers to a demon or nonhuman spirit that enters a human body and causes the person whose body it is to behave in an unusual fashion. The unusual behavior is expressed in symptoms similar to those of epilepsy, such as fainting and convulsions. The diagnosis of possession comes from the identification of additional symptoms, such as unusual strength, changes in the person’s voice, speaking in a foreign tongue with no prior knowledge, and so forth. Accounts of possession are not unique to Jewish culture. Societies differ in their theories about the nature and qualities of the invader. The assumption common to all these theories is that the invader can act independently and influence the destiny of human beings. It could be said that the possessed individual serves as a means used by the community to impose sanctions on its members.2 In every model of possession, the exorcist is a male member of the religious establishment; in most cases, the possessed person is a woman or young person from the fringes of society. Every method of exorcising demons outside the bounds of the religious establishment is regarded as forbidden magic. Ever since the fifteenth century, Christianity and Islam have regarded possession as the work of the devil, directly linked to the sins of the possessed person (although Islam allows that the devil may work through a djinn).3 The ritual of exorcism is similar in every culture. First, the spirit is identified; next, the exorcist begins negotiating with it in order to expel it. The ritual is designed to strengthen religion, spread its ideas and symbols, and 2 For more on this topic, see Sara Zfatman Beller, “Exorcism of Spirits in Prague in the Seventeenth Century” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore 3 (1982): 27–8; Gedalyah Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales in Jewish Literature [in Hebrew], 2nd ed. ( Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1983), 16–26. 3 Note that, in Islam, possession by spirits was originally deemed to be a positive rather than a negative phenomenon. There too, however, at some point between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, the notion crystallized that possession is satanic and exclusively negative. For more on possession in pagan, Christian, and Muslim cultures, see Yaniv Goldberg, “Studies in Rabbinic Notions in Documents about Dybbuk Exorcism and the Literary Response to Them” [in Hebrew] (PhD dissertation, Bar-Ilan University, 2011), Chap. 1. The majority of the historical background in Christianity and Islam is based on the work of Revital Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories as Historical Sources” [in Hebrew] (master’s thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 2007); Jeffrey Howard Chajes, Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003); Jeffrey Howard Chajes, “City of the Dead: Spirit Possession in 16th Century Safed,” in Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Matt Goldish (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003).

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attract new devotees—even if the earliest exorcists, guided by their theology, were not aware of this. Although their intent was to save the possessed person, of course, the way the ritual was conducted, from the earliest such ceremonies, placed strong emphasis on its effect on the audience. After these beginnings, exorcists increasingly employed the ritual as a means of bolstering and reinforcing religion and came to regard the victim’s physical and mental condition as a marginal issue. In this way, the ceremony became an important instrument for maintaining the balance of power between the religious leader and the community, and for keeping the community inside the religious framework.

POSSESSION IN JEWISH CULTURE In Jewish society, we can trace the notion of the dybbuk to describe Jewish modes of possession back to sixteenth-century Safed, where the Jewish theory of the dybbuk developed. (The word dybbuk is short for the Hebrew expression “possession [Hebrew dybbuk, from devek “attachment”] by an evil spirit.”4) Although the Jews of Safed were influenced by the Iberian and Ottoman worlds’ conception of the phenomenon,5 they also made a marked effort to develop an essentially Jewish explanation of the events and give it a content unique to Jewish culture, with its own perspectives and beliefs. For instance, to comply with Judaism’s religious prohibition on dealing with demons, the invading entity was identified as the soul of a dead person and not as a demon or nonhuman spirit.6 Testimonies about instances of possession and descriptions of Jewish methods for exorcising demons can be found in many Jewish sources, dating from the Second Temple period to the end of the twelfth century. By contrast, we find no records of contemporary cases of possession from the end of the twelfth century to the mid-sixteenth century, even though belief in demons and spirits continued to thrive. This belief in demons and spirits is documented in many late medieval texts that describe the demons’ power and influence.7 The 4 Note that the term dybbuk emerged in Europe in the seventeenth century; before then, people spoke of an “evil spirit.” On the evolution of the term, see Gershom Scholem, “Golem and Dybbuk in the Hebrew Lexicon” [in Hebrew], Leshonenu 6 (1934/5): 40–1. 5 Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories,” 26–7; Chajes, Between Worlds, 33; Chajes, “City of the Dead,” 124–58. 6 Most extant dybbuk stories are collected in Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales. For more on the characteristics of dybbuk narratives, see Goldberg, “Studies,” Chap. 2. 7 For examples, see Tamar Alexander, “On the Genre Form of Demon Stories” [in Hebrew], Dappim le-Mehqar be-Sifrut 8 (1992): 203–19.

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earliest documented exorcism of a dybbuk, as the phenomenon is still known today, took place in Safed in 1545. This was some three hundred years after the kabbalistic basis for the phenomenon (the theory of gilgul or transmigration of souls and the theory of the ibbur) was laid down, and about four hundred years after the last description in Jewish literature of cases of demonic possession. In the mid-sixteenth century, possession became a common occurrence in Safed, no longer a theoretical belief but a real event. Now, however, a human body was not invaded by a demon or spirit, but by a neshamah or “soul,” the spirit of a deceased person whose sins while alive required “rectification” (tiqqun). In general, the voice was recognized as the spirit of a deceased person who had lived in the near vicinity and died within the last forty years, so that he or she remained in living memory, even if the possessed person had not known him or her personally.8 The reference to a soul rather than to an evil spirit or demon was guided by the halakhic prohibition of magic and shamanic practices. “You shall not permit a sorceress to live” (Exodus 22:17 [18]); “a man or a woman who has a ghost or a familiar spirit [alternative translation: who is a medium or wizard] shall be put to death” (Leviticus 20:27)—practices that were eschewed by Jewish society for four hundred years, mainly because they were banned by the church. The new theory was influenced also by ideas related to redemption and the rectification of the world developed by Rabbi Isaac Luria (known as the ARI). The doctrine concerning the nature of spirits, their behavior after they invaded the body of the possessed, and the methods to be followed to expel them, which was developed based on these notions by his disciple, Rabbi Hayyim Vital, was cited as authoritative by future generations and was frequently incorporated into stories and documents. The texts that record cases of possession serve as an archetype and model for later generations in all matters associated with diagnosis of the victim as being possessed by a dybbuk and the prescribed order of the exorcism ritual. This explains the great similarity among the documents. Those who took part in these ceremonies, whether actively or passively (the possessed person, the exorcist, and the onlookers), were supposed to know the precise scenario in advance and to stick to it. As mentioned above, the first documented case of exorcism of a dybbuk appears in Zafenat Pa’neah, by Rabbi Judah Hallawah. The author recounts that he was present at such a

8 Zfatman Beller, “Exorcism of Spirits,” 26. Only in exceptional cases is the invading spirit identified as having lived in a more distant era, usually antiquity or the Talmudic age.

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ceremony in 1545, where the exorcist was none other than Rabbi Joseph Caro, the author of the binding halakhic code, the Shulḥan ‘arukh.9

THE BIRTH OF THE DYBBUK The mystical atmosphere of the city of Safed, along with the widespread dissemination of the Kabbalah there, certainly played a role in the increased phenomenon of possession. However, we must nevertheless inquire into the reasons for the adoption of this model of the dybbuk and the coalescence of the public ceremony, with its defined stages, as opposed to the ad hoc event, generally in a more restricted format, of earlier times. Scholars have tried to explain the burgeoning of cases of possession in the sixteenth century, or, at least, why it was then that they were committed to writing. Rachel Elior believes that we should focus on Jewish marriage patterns at the start of the modern era to explain the phenomenon of possession in the sixteenth century. She argues that the selection of spouses in traditional society was a decision made by the parents, based on carefully thought out considerations of utility, as a function of the intended spouses’ financial, social, and religious characteristics. Issues of personal suitability or intimate attraction were rarely part of the equation. Against the background of these social arrangements and the power systems they embodied, which rejected the possibility of choice and decision and generally did not assign any importance to sentiments of love and repugnance, attraction and repulsion, willingness and reluctance, and did not allow open and flexible frameworks for contracting marriages and ending them, … subversive channels and patterns developed for escaping forced social conventions.10

Against the background of marriages imposed on a couple against their will, patterns emerged that permitted a temporary suspension of these forced rela 9 This text has been preserved only in MS Dublin: Judah Hallawah, Zafenat Pa’neah (Dublin, Trinity College), MS 27 B. 5, fols. 144a–145a. A copy of this text and another document from the same volume are included in Moshe Idel, “Studies in the Method of the Author of ‘Sefer ha-Meshiv’” [in Hebrew], Sefunot 2, no. 17 (1983): 224, 230; see also Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories,” 20–1. 10 Rachel Elior, “The Dybbuk, Between the Exoteric World and the Esoteric World: Speaking Voices, Mute Worlds, and Stifled Voices” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 19 (2005): 504. For further clarification see Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories,” 34.

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tionships, with the sexual obligations and traditional roles they implied. Elior believes that the main avenue for escaping them, along with the feelings of anxiety and powerlessness that they entailed, was possession by a dybbuk. The loss of control over one’s body made it possible to avoid marriage, even if only for a time; at the same time, the dybbuk’s voice allowed the victims to make themselves heard and to protest against those who defined the social order. Elior’s explanation provides a reason for the phenomenon, but does not clarify why the phenomenon did not resurface until the mid-sixteenth century, after the lapse of several centuries, even though the custom of marriage at a young age persisted with almost no change from ancient times. It is implausible that the anxieties and emotional needs of young people who were forced to marry at a tender age changed over the generations. The fear of marriage and the relevant emotions of young people of marriageable age are likely to have been the same in other periods, too, and not unique to the mid-sixteenth century. Nigal proposes that the doctrine of metempsychosis began to occupy a central place in the thought of the Safed kabbalists in the sixteenth century, whereas the proponents of esoteric lore wisdom in earlier centuries attached to it only negligible importance, because of the historical and cultural background and outlook of the Safed kabbalists concerning exile and redemption. All their interest and desires were devoted to the subject of tiqqun, rectification of the individual, rectification of society, and the world of the spheres, which were inseparable. The importance attached to repentance and rectification of sin is understandable. It was the doctrine of transmigration that made possible the rectification of all souls at the end of days.11

Nigal’s explanation makes it clear why curing the victim became a marginal element of the ceremony, the main axis of which was the rectification of the soul of the deceased that had penetrated his body, and helps us understand why the model of exorcism was transformed from “the exorcism of demons” to the “rectification of souls.” However, it does not explain why, although the link between the rectification of souls and the redemption had already appeared in Sefer Ha-Bahir at the end of the twelfth century. It became even more important

11 Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 16.

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in the circle that surrounded Naḥmanides; the earliest accounts of dybbuks date from several centuries later.12 Joseph Dan asserts that the sudden appearance of dybbuk stories should be seen as part of a broader development trend of the literary genre of Jewish hagiography. He holds that the majority of texts about the exorcism of dybbuks are rooted in a hagiographic context, centering on a well-known leader and recounting his spiritual and magical prowess in expelling the spirit. According to Dan, the earliest texts’ attitude toward figures such as Luria and Vital proves that the dybbuk narratives are related to the history of Jewish hagiography, which began to develop as a genre at the beginning of the modern era.13 Dan’s argument is appropriate mainly for later texts, whose goal is indeed hagiographic, such as those relating to the exorcism of dybbuks in Hasidic communities. These texts, most of which are second- and thirdhand accounts, offer scant details and do not purport to be a precise description of the course of the ceremony. Their aim was mainly hagiographic, lauding the exorcist, usually the Hasidic rebbe, but offering minimal information about the actual conduct of the ceremony.14 Moreover, the first records of the expulsion of a dybbuk, the documents that molded the standard pattern of exorcism and became the models for later ceremonies, omit the exorcists’ names and thus have no hagiographic element. For example, a document written by Elijah Falkon in 1571 refers to the exorcists simply as “two men who are knowledgeable in adjurations.”15 Another document, also referring to a ceremony that seems to have taken place in 1571, and which 12 Bouskila advances another argument against Nigal’s explanation: the first documented exorcism of a dybbuk is dated, as noted, from 1545 in Safed, but Isaac Luria did not arrive in Safed until some years later (evidently in 1570). From this, Bouskila concludes that this exorcism was unrelated to Luria’s ideas (Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories,” 21). I do not believe that this conclusion is necessary. In those years, there were constant exchanges of letters, messengers, and students between Safed and Egypt (where Luria lived before he immigrated to the Land of Israel). Furthermore, many of the exiles from Spain were living in Safed at that time, and were quite familiar with the theory of transmigration and the ibbur, and up to date on the development of those theories that led to the dybbuk paradigm. It is implausible that Rabbi Joseph Caro, who settled in Safed earlier and was well versed in the theory of transmigration and ibbur and its evolution into the dybbuk of the Spanish exiles, did not know the theory of Lurianic Kabbalah. 13 Joseph Dan, “Introduction,” in Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Matt Goldish (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 30– 32; Joseph Dan, “Hebrew Literature in the East after the Expulsion from Spain” [in Hebrew] Pe’amim 26 (1986): 77–86; see also Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories,” 22. 14 Nigal holds that the paucity of details about the ritual is a result of the increasing reticence about the use of magic (Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 12). 15 Joseph Sambari, Divrei Yosef [in Hebrew], ed. S. Shtober ( Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1984), 319.

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was printed twice, first in Hebrew in Nishmat Hayyim and then in Yiddish in the Mayse Bukh, identifies the exorcists only as “the sages.”16 Moreover, in these instances, as well as in the only documented exorcism conducted by Luria himself,17 the exorcism was successful but the possessed person died, of whatever cause, within a few days (although in some cases the death is explained by causes unrelated to the exorcism, such as a problematic amulet that was placed on the possessed, and not as the result of the exorcist’s failure). The inclusion of the ultimate failure of the attempt to expel the dybbuk is evidence that the point of the document was to impress readers rather than to praise the exorcist. Jeffrey Chajes suggests a more complex picture of the appearance of the dybbuk in the early modern era. He asserts that there were cases of possession and ceremonies to exorcise demons and spirits in Jewish society before sixteenth-century Safed, but for various reasons they were not considered to be significant so that there was no need to document them. Around the seventeenth century, however, hagiographers, moralists, kabbalists, and rabbis evinced new interest in dybbuks. This interest led the rabbinic establishment (halakhic authorities and kabbalists) in Safed to document these cases and circulate them widely.18 Sometimes a single case was written up in multiple accounts in different books, whether as firsthand testimony or as copied from a published volume or pamphlet.19 Chajes tries to show that there had been similar cases in Jewish communities in Christian Spain before the Expulsion. Incidents of possession, witchcraft, and prophecy were widespread in Spain and in other Christian countries from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries—what historians refer to as the “golden age of the demoniac.”20 Chajes holds that there 16 Manasseh ben Israel, Nishmat Hayyim (Amsterdam, 1652), 109a–111a; Mayse Bukh (Basel, 1602), 93a–94a; both quoted by Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 65–7. 17 The only documented exorcism conducted by Luria exists in two versions: Hayyim Vital, “Eleh toledot Yizhaq,” in Meir Benayahu, Sefer Toledot ha-Ari ( Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1967), 247–78; Sambari, Divrei Yosef, 350. The main difference between the two is why the spirit invaded the victim. In the version presented by Benayahu, it is presented as a decree by the Heavenly Tribunal, and an expression of divine justice; in Sambari’s version, it is represented as a desire for personal revenge by the spirit, a desire that Luria believes is irrational, because it is a new avatar. 18 Jeffrey Howard Chajes, “Judgments Sweetened: Exorcism in Early Modern Culture,” in Journal of Early Modern History 1, no. 2 (1997): 125–69; see also Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories,” 22–4. 19 See, for example, Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 61n1. 20 Stuart Clark, Thinking With Demons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 390; Clark is quoting E. William Monter, Witchcraft in France and Switzerland (London: Cornell University Press, 1976), 60.

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is a natural symbiosis between societies that live in close proximity to one another, and that the Jews were no exception in this regard. Hence, the Jews, too, engaged in magical practices, including exorcism rituals. After the expulsion from Spain, many Iberian Jews came to Safed, where, by the mid-sixteenth century, they constituted the majority. A mystical atmosphere of uncovering the arcana of the Torah marked Safed of those days. In addition, according to Chajes, Safed was seen as “a city that lives with its dead”21 because of the proximity of the cemetery to its houses, and the large number of Diaspora Jews who moved there to die in the Holy Land. It was in this city that the paradigm of the dybbuk was refashioned. Under the influence of the kabbalistic theory of the ibbur, it was identified as the spirit of a dead person that invaded a live body in search of a “refuge” from the destructive angels that were punishing it for its sins when alive—sins so horrific that it could not even gain admittance to purgatory. According to Chajes, the prevalence of dybbuks in Safed did not reflect a new phenomenon, but rather a new need for documentation of cases. This need was fueled by didactic and ethical concerns, particularly in light of the lack of a formal community authority sanctioned by the government, in addition to the need to establish Safed as the spiritual center of Jewish society in the early modern era. Chajes endeavors to place the dybbuk phenomenon in a broad perspective that traces the development of Kabbalah within the Jewish milieu, as well as the cultural interaction in Spain before the Expulsion. These two tracks merged in Safed, a city that absorbed many exiles from Spain and where, for social, religious, and political reasons, instances of possession by dybbuks were documented extensively. Chajes’s interpretation facilitates an understanding of the lines of similarity between instances of possession in Europe and Christian exorcism ceremonies on the one hand, and the Jewish equivalent, the dybbuk, that appeared in Safed (the description of the symptoms of possession, the course of the exorcism ceremony, and the adaptation to the historical era)—and this despite the geographic distance between Safed and Spain. In his book, Chajes surveys a wide variety of paranormal phenomena found among the Jews of Spain in the fifteenth century, ranging from ascetic forms of prophecy to mystical techniques for communicating with the souls of the departed righteous men.22 Although the accounts cited by Chajes are related to the kabbalistic notion of transmigration and ascetic practices in a mystical environment, none of 21 Chajes, Between Worlds, 33; Chajes, “City of the Dead,” 124–58. 22 Chajes, Between Worlds, 17–32.

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his proofs supports his claim that there was a model of possession and dybbuks in fifteenth-century Spain. Moreover, the only testimony relating to a dybbuk in Spain cited by Chajes was not written in Spain in the fifteenth century, but by the aforementioned Judah Hallawah, a kabbalist who immigrated from Morocco to Safed, in his book Zafenat Pa’neah (1545), as a prologue to his account of the exorcism of a dybbuk by Rabbi Joseph Caro.23 This is a clear attempt to link the phenomenon of the dybbuk to the Spanish kabbalistic tradition; in fact, precisely this case, which deals with a young non-Jewish woman, attests to the fact that the phenomenon was something of a novelty for the Jews. Furthermore, Hallawah wrote his account of the event in Spain in the mid-sixteenth century based on memory, and not as an eyewitness account of the ceremony. Had cases of possession or dybbuks been known in Jewish society in fifteenth-century Spain, it is likely that kabbalists acquainted with the doctrines of transmigration and the ibbur would have felt a need to document them, or at least mention them, even if only in passing, among the other magical techniques to which they referred. My view is that not only the identification of the invading spirit as the soul of a dead person, but also the phenomenon itself and the consolidation of the ritual, were invented in Safed at that time. This is corroborated by the impression of Gedaliah Ibn Yahya, writing in the 1580s, who was astonished by the phenomenon and was hard put to come up with a rational explanation for it: “It is hard to understand rationally how it is possible for the spirit of another person, who has died, to function inside a different body that is alive, and employ all its organs and senses. In fact, to be brief, it seems to be one of the wonders of the age and passing strange.”24 Gedaliah Ibn Yahya’s astonishment would itself have been astonishing if the phenomenon had already been well known in the Jewish world for more than a century. His surprise, and that of others,25 is understandable if the dybbuk was a new phenomenon in Jewish society, different from the old pattern of possession. We should stress that not only was there a change in the identity of the invading spirit, but also there was a shift in the emphasis from curing the victim to rectifying a soul. Whereas the goal had once been to heal the victim of possession, now it was merely a secondary objective. The main point of the ceremony was to rectify the spirit, the soul of the deceased, and to rouse spectators to penitence.26 23 Hallawah, Zafenat Pa’neah, fol. 155a; Chajes, Between Worlds, 26. 24 Gedaliah Ibn Yahya, Shalshelet ha-qabbalah, Hadorot Harishonim Vekorotam ( Jerusalem, 1962 [Venice, 1587]), 86b. 25 See also Eliezer Ashkenazi, Ma’asei Hashem (Venice, 1583), vol. 2, 5a. 26 Whereas the focus on repentance was left implicit in the earliest accounts of dybbuk exorcism, or added as the author’s conclusion, at the most recent exorcism, performed in Israel

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Revital Bouskila suggests that supernatural spirits were transformed from angelic companions of God into allies of the devil in a process that began in the Middle Ages. Magic, formerly a healing practice or simply trickery, turned into satanic witchcraft. Because the expulsion of demons was construed as the church’s victory over the devil, the ecclesiastical authorities forbade nonclerical exorcisms and defined them as heresy. The result was that women suspected of witchcraft were burned at the stake, while spirit possession gradually disappeared from Jewish society. The Jews, already suspected of being in league with the devil (the Antichrist) and engaged in black magic, were careful to avoid adopting the host society’s models of diagnosis and practice, especially when persecution by the church and the masses intensified; as a result, instances of possession vanished from Jewish society. After the expulsion from Spain in the late fifteenth century, many of the exiles, the Jews of Spain and Portugal, found their way to the Ottoman Empire and settled there. In this Muslim society, spirit possession was considered a natural disease, and exorcism was understood as a therapeutic treatment, just as in ancient times. So, in the sixteenth century, after four hundred years in eclipse, spirit possession again became a viable possibility in Jewish society.27 Bouskila’s thesis, which answers the question of why dybbuks began to appear in this period, does not explain the metamorphosis from possession by a spirit to possession by the soul of a deceased person, whereas the Muslim and Christian world practiced the exorcism of demons and nonhuman spirits. Above all, it fails to explain the significant change in the goals of the ceremony, as described above. Joseph Hacker describes an additional process. According to him, the exiles from Spain “left the Iberian Peninsula in a gloomy atmosphere and in a sense of crisis, a crisis of faith and a crisis of values. The Expulsion inflicted severe damage on the family unit, the collective image, and economic possibilities. It caused despair and defeatism, on the one hand, and death and destruction, on the other.”28 The crisis described by Hacker included every sphere of by Rabbi Bazri in 2010, the ritual was preceded by speeches by various rabbis who called on the audience to repent. It was emphasized that not even skeptics could ignore the fact that the ceremony was a powerful instrument to encourage people to repent. “In any case, even someone who is quite certain that it is a severe persecution complex that struck the man, and not a dybbuk, cannot deny the following fact: such a revivalist event leading to repentance has not been seen in our provinces for a long time” (Shlomo Kook, “The Thousands Cried, ‘Depart, Depart, Depart’” [in Hebrew], Hashavua be-El’ad 23 [ January 14, 2010]: 20–21). 27 Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories,” 26–7. 28 Joseph Hacker, “Emigrés from Spain in the Ottoman Empire in the 15th to 18th Centuries,” in The Sephardic Jewish Diaspora after the Expulsion from Spain [in Hebrew], ed. Michel Abitbol et al. ( Jerusalem: Shazar Center, 1982), 48.

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life, spawning skepticism and social and religious criticism. He holds that the crisis was accompanied by an additional process of the undermining of the old social order, at least in the first years after the Expulsion: Lineage, one of the fundamental social principles that defined the Spanish leadership echelon, community leaders as well as sages, decreased in importance, at least for a certain period at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In other words, the capricious reality of an immigrant society, in which physical survival is paramount, also modified the social reality and the old social ideals… . The new immigrants, who found themselves in a foreign and alien environment, unable to communicate with those around them, … did not comply with the social conventions that had been accepted in Spain before the expulsion… . Although this egalitarianism was temporary and life quickly returned to its old course, there is no doubt that, once the dam burst and criticism of the old social and religious order came out into the open, they had to find a way to restore the old order.29

The restoration of the old order had to be achieved by means that assigned vast authority to the religious establishment and leadership. Possession answered this need, because it granted the religious leader a mantle of holiness, knowledge, power, and authority, as well as control of the dead and the hidden worlds. This hypothesis affords a comprehensive historical explanation, but does not account for the fact that this new model of possession had to be consolidated on a religious, sociological, and ideological foundation, and could not have emerged simply from a need to enhance the power of the establishment. I would like to propose studying the topic from a number of perspectives, incorporating elements from the various ideas presented above. After the expulsion from Spain, Jewish society experienced a grave crisis—an economic crisis, a cultural crisis, and, especially, a crisis of faith. Catholic Christianity grew stronger: a central tenet of Catholic belief is that God abandoned the Jews and granted His favor to the Christians, as proven by the Jews’ wretched situation. Many Jews converted to Christianity—some as conversos, still practicing Judaism in secret, others totally renouncing their ancestral traditions.30 In 29 Ibid., 49; see also Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories,” 27. 30 Robert Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, trans. Anthony Oldcorn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 103; Haim Beinart, “The Great Conversion and the Converso

The Unique Characteristics of Dybbuk

addition, belief in Islam also grew stronger. The old order, the religious hierarchy, and the political and religious leadership were challenged. The difficult situation required the leaders of the Jewish community to take drastic measures to stop the erosion that was damaging the Jewish people. The expulsion from Spain forced Jewish society to cope with a new cultural environment and with problems of economic, religious, and cultural adjustment. At the same time, Rabbi Joseph Caro produced the Beit Yosef and the Shulḥan ‘arukh, a Jewish legal code that encompasses every aspect of Jewish life and severely reduced the relative pluralism of halakhic ruling that had existed until then. The composition of a uniform legal code binding on all Jewish communities (or at least, initially, the Safed community) compelled the Jewish community to be scrupulous about the minutiae of the law as formulated by Caro, and exerted additional pressure on individual members of the Jewish community, whose lives had already been rendered difficult by external circumstances. The dybbuk served as a vent to release repressed desires and feelings and thereby offered release from the constricting bonds of religion.31 Luria, who, along with other kabbalists of sixteenth-century Safed who were familiar with the Christian and Muslim modes of possession, addressed the mental trauma of the Diaspora after the expulsion from Spain, and created a Jewish model that was eventually designated a dybbuk. They created a carefully scripted ceremony for expelling the spirit. This model of dybbuk exorcism served the objective of strengthening Jewish belief on a number of levels. On the one hand, the rectification of souls hastened the redemption and led the Jews to the conclusion that the redemption was just around the corner, bringing with it material and spiritual wellbeing for them, as stated in the prophecies of redemption.32 On the other hand, the ability manifested by the rabbi as community leader—to control the world of the dead, to master the world of souls and spirits, to command the soul of the dead person to depart, to rectify it so that it could enter purgatory and then heaven—endowed the rabbi with vast powers as perceived by the community,

Problem,” in The Sephardi Legacy, ed. Haim Beinart ( Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1992), 346–82. Beinart describes extensive apostasy among Spanish Jews, including leading rabbinical figures, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories,” 39n42. 31 Yoram Bilu defined this as the “myth of passivity,” in which the dybbuk permitted the externalization of repressed feelings. See Yoram Bilu, “Asla’i, Dybbuk, Zar: Cultural Separatism and Historical Continuity in Possession Diseases in Jewish Communities” [in Hebrew], Pe’amim, 85 (2001): 132. 32 B Berakhot 34b; Maimonides, Laws of Repentance 9:2.

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and an unmediated relationship with the Creator: for he had the power to alter the order of creation. As noted above, from the very first exorcisms, the ritual was designed to encourage repentance. To achieve this, it was conducted in front of a large audience of people, who were urged by the officiant to repent.33 It should be stressed that the ritual and its underlying theory accorded with the Safed kabbalists’ ideas about redemption and God’s governance of the world. It was not a cynical attempt to regiment thought, but a genuine belief that their course was correct, accompanied by a sincere attempt to heal the possessed and rectify the soul of the deceased person that had invaded his or her body. However, there is no doubt that extraneous considerations helped mold the Jewish model of possession (even if unconsciously) and that the ritual was conducted in a manner that kept the Jews within the bounds of the Torah and halakhic observance, thereby preserving the balance of power between rabbi and community in the Jewish cultural space. When the ceremony was over, the exorcism was documented and printed, to serve the didactic end of making the masses that were not present at the event aware of it. Some documents say this in so many words: “To increase the honor of Heaven, to teach a moral, and to straighten the crooked ways of the heart.”34 It is clear from the records that, in the vast majority of cases, exorcism ceremonies were conducted in the presence of the victim’s family, sages, and members of the community. The crux of the ceremony was not expelling the dybbuk; rather, it was giving the spectators, and, later on, those who read the written account, the feeling that the rabbi, as exorcist, was endowed with supernatural powers. The exorcists were trying to convey the notion that if the person who wields supernatural powers believes in the Jewish religion, it must be true; and if the rabbi knows the religious and cultural truth, there are rational grounds (and not just a religious obligation, about which many were skeptical) for doing as he bids. Moreover, the rabbis, seeking to buttress the religious foundations and keep their flock within the fold of Jewish belief, encouraged spectators and readers to entertain thoughts of penitence and amend their evil ways. In other words, in order to arrest the wave of apostasy, a “supernatural” figure was fashioned, a person who was divinely inspired—as demonstrated by his ability to control the world of souls and the dead—who could state the truth

33 On the importance of the number of Jews present at the ceremony, and its public nature, see Elijah Hakohen Ha-Itamari, Minhat Eliyahu (Saloniki, 1824), 8a. 34 Moses Abraham Hayyat, Ruah Hayyim (Nikolsburg, 1745), 5b; Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 13.

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with certainty.35 The ceremonies, and the accounts that were published later, were an excellent device for maintaining the balance of power in the community. “Together, discourse and force are the chief means whereby social borders, hierarchies, institutional formations, and habituated patterns of behavior are both maintained and modified.”36 Discourse means ideological persuasion. The Jewish kabbalistic basis for belief in the dybbuk is the theory of the transmigration of souls, first mentioned in Sefer Ha-Bahir (Provence, late twelfth century). The theory of transmigration was prominent in Spanish kabbalist circles throughout the thirteenth century and was seen as a solution to the problem of theodicy. The Zohar (late thirteenth century) expands significantly on prior work about this doctrine. During that period, kabbalists began to differentiate between the notions of transmigration (gilgul) and ibbur (“impregnation”). The former referred to a soul that entered a new body in the womb or at birth, whereas ibbur designated an additional, alien soul that invaded a living body during the host’s life. Along with many testimonies that identify an ibbur with beneficent spirits, other contemporary accounts depict them as evil spirits. The identity of the person possessed was the basis for the distinction between the identification of the invader as “good” or “evil” and the definition of this state of consciousness as positive or negative. The first authority to consider the possibility of an “evil ibbur” was Rabbi Moses Cordovero, who applies this concept to the penetration of one person’s soul by a wicked soul or evil spirit. This, he asserts, is the opposite of possession by a good spirit: The matter is that a person may have the holy divine spirit resting upon him… . And this matter applies to all the prophets. And its contrary and terror is an evil spirit. Thus, a soul may be impregnated in a man, sometimes holy, sometimes evil. Indeed, we have seen a demon or evil spirit latch on to a person and terrify him… . And the nature of the ibbur is according to his [the possessed person’s] character. If a soul possesses his soul, it is a good soul because of good deeds he has done, or an evil soul because of a sin he has committed… . And there is no doubt that the good ibbur will 35 See, for example, Shalom b. Baruch Mordecai Perlow, Kuntras Dover Shalom (New York, 1944), s.v. gilgulim, which reports that the rebbe of Kadinov decided to exorcise the dybbuk in public in order to teach the community a moral lesson: “At first the rabbi’s thought was to gather only a quorum of ten men for this, but then he decided to do it in public so that people would see and fear and be chastised” (emphasis added). 36 Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 3.

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According to Cordovero, that ibbur can be a demon, an evil spirit, or even a soul—a human spirit—that exerts a negative influence on the actions and conduct of the person it invades. The standard explanation of the phenomenon, according to which this state of consciousness is defined as positive or negative, is that the definition depends mainly on the moral quality of the entity that is held to possess a person. In other words, the identity of the dybbuk and its moral degree are what determine whether this state is positive or negative.38 Further, the dybbuk is conceived of as a negative illness, which appears spontaneously and involuntarily; the possessed person remains passive, with no control over his actions and with no consciousness or memory after the fact. By contrast, possession by a maggid, the benevolent soul of a righteous person, or even an angel, is a desirable condition of active connection to mystical knowledge; in this case, the oracular trance comes upon the person consciously and the experience remains in his memory.39 I do not believe that there is room for a substantive differentiation between the two types of possession. Cordovero’s distinction seems to be based on the fact that the kabbalists of that period had to deal with the reality that those possessed might just as easily be ignorant common folk and sinners as distinguished men, rabbis, and kabbalists.40 Because the symptoms of possession are similar, it was deemed necessary to distinguish the phenomenon as it affected scholars from that which afflicted laypersons, just as there was a need to make a distinction between the possession of men and the possession of women. This led to the notion that a benevolent spirit could 37 Moses Cordovero, Derishot Be-inyenei Mal’akhim, in Reuven Margoliot, Mal’akhei Elyon [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1945), vol. 2, 64–5 (emphasis added); see also Bouskila, “Dybbuk Stories,” 37. 38 Yoram Bilu, “The Man’s Deep Voice Erupts like a Storm from the Woman’s Mouth” [in Hebrew], Ha’aretz, Culture and Literary Supplement, September 22, 2010, 7. For more on the distinction between a negative dybbuk and positive states of possession, see Zvi Mark, “Dybbuk and Possession in the Praises of the Besht: Notes on the Phenomenology of Madness in Early Hasidism,” in Within Hasidic Circles, A collection of studies in memory of Prof. Mordechai Wilensky [in Hebrew], ed. Immanuel Etkes et al. ( Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 2000), 257–61 and 280–1. 39 Ibid. 40 For another attempt to compare the phenomena of the maggid and the negative dybbuk, see Matt Goldish, “Vision and Possession: Nathan of Gaza’s Earliest Prophecies in Historical Context,” in Goldish, Spirit Possession, 222–5.

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invade a righteous person and aid his spiritual uplifting. In the case of the layperson or unlettered man, by contrast, it was an evil spirit that invaded him because of his sins, and was liable to cause him to transgress further; this is why it had to be exorcised. In other words, the distinction between the two states of possession has nothing to do with the identity of the invader, but with the identity of the possessed person. It was the latter that forged the distinction between the identity of the invading entity and the determination of this state of consciousness as positive or negative, thereby maintaining the balance of power in the community. This also explains the gender difference: women were possessed by evil spirits or the souls of sinful women; for, according to the traditional perspective, women have “belonged to sin” ever since Eve. But men, who study Torah, are possessed by good spirits and the souls of the righteous. This difference was maintained in the sixteenth century when the model of the dybbuk as it is still known today crystallized; it was the phenomenon of “impregnation by an evil spirit” that became the conceptual basis for the dybbuk phenomenon and the exorcism ceremony, as these developed then. In this context, it is also clear why the spirit that possessed Rabbi Joseph Caro (the first documented exorcist) is defined as a maggid, meaning a positive and heavenly possession, whereas men and women from the fringes of society were diagnosed as being possessed by a negative dybbuk that had to be expelled from their bodies.41 There is no doubt that a dissociative personality disorder intensifies a person’s traits, as found in those possessed by a dybbuk; in this mental pathology, there is sometimes partial recognition of the existence of other identities, or one dominant personality that remembers and knows what has happened to all the other personalities, though sometimes there is not. This is not enough, however, to distinguish among these states conclusively.42 Hence it is not surprising to discover that Rabbi Joseph Caro was able to write his book Maggid Meisharim while in a trance, whereas men and women on the margins of society (and thus probably illiterate) who were possessed by a dybbuk were unable to do anything comparable. The possessed person’s degree of wakefulness while 41 Buskila claims that the distinction between the possession of religious scholars like Rabbi Joseph Caro and nonreligious scholars, such as women or sinners, was because of the rabbinic establishment’s fear of allowing them to connect to the souls of the Tzaddikim. I think that the distinction is much deeper. It was in order to maintain the power relationship in the Jewish society. The idea was to protect the good name of the rabbis and less to explain the phenomena of other possessed groups. For more on this subject, see Goldberg, “Studies,” 89. 42 Robert L. Spitzer et al., eds., Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM–IV– TR, 4th ed., Text Revision (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 2000), xxxi.

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in a trance makes no difference; even if he does not remember what happened when he was in the trance state, the evidence remains, in the form of human testimonies or a written text. There is no doubt that states of possession intensify the possessed person’s repressed desires and personality traits.43

THE DYBBUK AS A REFLECTION OF POWER RELATIONSHIPS IN THE COMMUNITY The paradigm of dybbuk exorcism was a response to the need to strengthen Jewish religious belief after the crisis in economic life, culture, and faith that followed the expulsion from Spain, which spurred widespread apostasy. The ritual to exorcise the dybbuk “rectifies” the soul. This rectification or tiqqun, according to the kabbalistic perspective, hastens the Redemption and affords the Jewish nation hope that when the Redemption comes, after the rectification of every Jewish soul, it will be accompanied by greater economic and spiritual wellbeing for the Jews. In addition, the community begins to regard its rabbi—its leader—as an enormously powerful magician: if he can command the soul of the deceased person to leave the body, he must have a direct relationship with the Creator. This sustains the balance of power between the rabbi and his community and strengthens him as a religious leader. If he is capable of “rectifying souls,” “gaining their admission to Paradise,” and “saving the possessed person,” he must have mystical powers and knowledge. If he speaks of an obligation to observe the Torah and the precepts, then there is no doubt that he must be heeded. In pursuit of the didactic goal, the ritual was written up after the ceremony and published, for the benefit of those who had not been present during the exorcism. Therefore, as noted above, it is possible to conclude that the focus of the exorcism ritual in Judaism from its inception, as in the Christian cultural space (and later in the Muslim world), was not to expel the dybbuk but to keep the spectators and readers within the Jewish community and thereby to preserve the balance of power between the rabbi and the congregation. A comparison of the models of possession in various religions leads us to the conclusion that the more the “ground trembled” under the feet of the religious establishment and the greater the need to defend the religion, the more the religious establishment 43 Richard J. Loewenstein, “An Office Mental Status Examination for Complex Chronic Dissociative Symptoms and Multiple Personality Disorder,” in Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 14, ed. R. J. Loewenstein (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1991), 567–604.

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had to claim that it disposed of magical qualities and supernatural power, such as the ability to rule over the higher and hidden worlds, or to exorcise demons, spirits, or souls.

DYBBUK DOCUMENTS IN ITALY We have documentation of two exorcism ceremonies that took place in Italy in the eighteenth century, entitled, respectively, The Arrogant Demon (Shed Yahir) and A Spirit of Dizziness (Ruah Ivvim), both copied by Joseph Almanzi.44 The former is the record of an incident in Gorizia, in northern Italy (on the border with Slovenia). The spirit claimed that it had converted to Christianity and consequently was being subjected to severe punishment by the angels of destruction, who would not allow it to enter purgatory; this was the reason it had invaded the body of the possessed person. The Arrogant Demon coincides with the purpose of dybbuk stories, as presented above, but A Spirit of Dizziness does not. A Spirit of Dizziness documents the case of a dybbuk in Padua (northern Italy), on 9 Adar 5538 (March 18, 1778).45 The invading spirits declared that “they are two Hebrews who transgressed the religion, they are empty and reckless people, empty of good deeds and as full of sins as a pomegranate.”46 They explained that they had sinned by fornicating with Gentile women, by engaging in homosexual relations, by eating forbidden foods and drinking nonkosher wine, and by publicly desecrating the Sabbath. For this, one of the spirits was condemned to be reincarnated in the body of a cat; and, when it escaped that, it entered a fig, where it found the second spirit.47 These transgressions were common in the cultural space of that era and undoubtedly were considered very grave by contemporary Italian Jewish society. This allows us to infer 44 Joseph Almanzi was an Italian Jewish bibliophile and poet, born in Padua on March 25, 1801, and died in Trieste on March 7, 1860. 45 The document was published by Nigal, “Spirit Possession in Eighteenth-Century Italy” [in Hebrew], in Fields of Offerings: Studies in Honor of Raphael Patai, ed. Victor D. Sanua (Rutherford, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1983); and again in Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 129–32, on the basis of London, British Museum, MS 27088, copied by Joseph Almanzi in 1844, and of New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, MS D 153 Acc 7392/ Mic 2296/4, written by Mordecai Marco b. Nathan Luzzatto of Trieste (1720–99). For more information, see Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 129n195. All the passages cited from this document are referenced according to Nigal’s book, as more readily accessible. 46 Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 130. 47 Ibid., 130–1.

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the social norms of that period. We might mention in passing that, whereas, in eighteenth-century Italy, we encounter sins that Jewish society still holds to be very serious—some of which even fall into the category of “allow oneself to be killed rather than transgress”—the “grievous sin” on whose account the deceased was forced to return as a dybbuk in Eastern Europe in the twentieth century was often “drinking without making the blessing.”48 One explanation for this is that the dybbuk was deemed to be guilty precisely of those failings that were widespread in the cultural space where the case occurred. In this way, the religious leader could repair the breach, encourage the public to repent, and maintain the balance of power between rabbi and community. A Spirit of Dizziness is unique among our records of dybbuk exorcisms. Quite unusually, it relates to three spirits that invade one woman at the same time49—two of them dead Jewish souls, the third a Christian soul. The possessed woman is a Christian, not a Jew.50 Those who converse with the spirit are neither rabbis nor baalei shem (healers) who know how to exorcise dybbuks, but three leaders of the Padua community. Nor is there any mention of the success of the exorcism ceremony, if it was conducted at all. In fact, we must assume that it was not, because the podestà had banned joint convocations of Jews and Christians, as the document itself notes.51 A text like this, in which both Christians and Jews invade a single body, runs counter to the goal of dybbuk stories, which is rooted in the Safed kabbalistic doctrine that every Jewish soul needs to be rectified for the Jewish people to attain the final Redemption.52

48 Aharon Sorski, Or Elhanan, I (Los Angeles, 1978), 73–73; Moshe Blau, Al Homotayikh Yerushalayim (Bene Beraq, 1968), 128–9; Yaakov Kanievsky, Hayyei Olam, I (Bene Beraq, 1957), 20. 49 Another case of three spirits speaking from within a single possessed body can be found in Minhat Yehudah. There, however, it is one spirit that requires rectification (the soul of Rosa, daughter of Freha), whereas the two other spirits are bailiffs of the Heavenly Tribunal, who are protecting the spirit and her place in the body of the victim (Katon, daughter of Aziza), and there is no need to exorcise them or conduct a rectification upon them. See Yehudah Petaya, Minhat Yehudah—Haruhot Mesapperot (Baghdad, 1933; Jerusalem, 1956), 52b–54b. 50 On the difference between the Jewish and Christian paradigms of possession, see Goldberg, “Studies,” 80–1. 51 Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 132. 52 For more details, see Moshe Hallamish, An Introduction to the Kabbalah, trans. Ruth BarIlan and Ora Wiskind-Elper (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999), 304, quoting Menahem Recanati, Perush ’al ha Torah, fol. 35b and 63c, end of Aharei Mot, to the effect that there is no transmigration into non-Jews and no Jewish soul ever enters the body of a non-Jew, and that this is the view of R. Isaac Luria, too; see there for dissenting opinions.

The Unique Characteristics of Dybbuk

The problematic nature of this document, from the Jewish theological perspective, can be explained by the fact that the first people to interrogate the possessed woman were not established rabbinical figures, but three lay leaders of the Padua community. The three, who were unlikely to be expert in the Jewish theological aspects of dybbuks and the rectification of the soul, accepted the spirit’s claim that it was Christian and did not press it to admit that it was the soul of a Jew. One recurrent feature of records of dybbuk exorcisms is the negotiation involved to get the spirit to reveal its identity; knowing its name and the reason for its invasion of the body of the possessed is a prerequisite for the ceremony of rectification. The negotiations between the exorcist and the invading spirit would continue until an answer was reached that satisfied the rabbi. As the negotiations with the spirit progressed, the debate between the spirit and the exorcist became more violent: the possessed person was forced to inhale sulfur fumes or was flogged until he or she fainted; the exorcist screamed at the victim, blew ram’s horns, and tried to move him or her to repentance. None of these means was employed in this case.53 Had the exorcist been an ordained rabbi, I believe that here too, as in other documents, we would have been treated to lengthy debates with the spirit or with the possessed woman in her cataleptic state, until she confessed that the spirit within her was the soul of a Jew. Alternatively, because the possessed woman was Christian, a competent Christian exorcist would have conducted negotiations until the spirit confessed that it was a demon, or even Satan himself, in accordance with the Christian doctrine of possession. The three community leaders, who probably did not hold a didactic religious perspective about possession and transmigration, apparently saw no need to continue the negotiations with the possessed woman. Most likely, they did not know that the three invading souls’ responses were not appropriate for the Jewish model of possession. Perhaps they were acquainted with the Christian paradigm, which they found satisfactory (evidence of how Christian society influenced the Jewish community). It is also possible that, inasmuch as they were not knowledgeable in exorcism rituals, they made do with the souls’ answers and did not pursue further negotiations with them. But these conjectures are inadequate; the text adds that, the next day, Rabbi Sabbetai Aaron Marini of Padua came to the woman and interrogated the spirits to find out why they had invaded the possessed woman’s body. During the course of his inquiry, he ensures that 53 In light of the document’s explicit language and the report of the questions addressed to the spirits and their answers, it is not likely that a debate took place that was omitted from the text.

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the spirits express contrition for their sins, and steers them toward the answers he wants to hear: “Do you want us Jews to entreat the Creator, blessed be He, by virtue of the Torah that we study for your sakes, and recite the Kaddish for the repose of your spirits? And they answered: ‘would it were so.’”54 Even so, he does not “persuade” the Christian spirit that she is in fact a Jewish soul, as might be expected from the Jewish concept of possession and its purpose. A unique feature of this document can explain this. In reports of exorcisms of Jewish victims, the onlookers are Jews; here, though, we find a mixed audience of Jews and Christians who came to witness the spectacle: “The next day, both Jews and Gentiles came to hear the truth of the matter with their own ears, to have confirmed for them the manner in which the dead praise God and acknowledge after their deaths the truth of the Creator and the truth of His holy Torah, written and oral, and the truth of the words of our sages.”55 It is plausible that, in the presence of a large Christian audience, Rabbi Marini did not dare argue with the spirit and force her to admit that she was not a Christian—not to mention that the victim herself was Christian. It makes sense that, had the confrontation ended with an exorcism ceremony, he would have negotiated with the spirit to get her to confess. Rabbi Marini’s biography provides a supplementary explanation. Marini, like other Italian rabbis of the time, maintained close ties with Christians.56 These bonds, and his cordial relations with Christian clerics, suggest that Christian influences and the cultural exchanges between Christians and Jews in Italy deterred him from stressing the deceased souls’ Jewishness. Perhaps, too, Rabbi Marini hoped to rectify the Christian soul as well.57 This assumption is supported by the presence of Christians at the ceremony. In the end, as mentioned above, it was not possible to proceed with the exorcism, because of the authorities’ ban on a gathering of Jews and 54 Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 131. Note that the exorcist/interrogator generally asks leading questions intended to produce theologically suitable replies. 55 Ibid., 130. 56 For more information on Rabbi Marini and his relations with Christians, his influence on them, and their influence on him, see Mordecai Samuel Ghirondi and Hananel Neppi, Toledot Gedolei Yisra’el U-ge’onei Italyah (Trieste, 1853), 343 §51. For more on the Italian rabbis of Marini’s circle, see Meir Benayahu, “R. Abraham Hacohen of Zante and the Group of Physician-Poets in Padua” [in Hebrew], Hasifrut 26 (1978): 108–40; Riccardo Di Segni, “Un dibbuq a Padova nel 1778,” Annuario di Studi Ebraici 10 (1984): 87–100, especially 93. I would like to thank Dr. Daniel Nissim of Ramat Aviv (originally of Padua), who called this article to my attention. 57 On the influence of Italian Christian culture on the Jewish cultural sphere with regard to possession, see Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 11; Hallamish, An Introduction to the Kabbalah.

The Unique Characteristics of Dybbuk

Christians in the possessed woman’s home. This reveals another unique feature of the document, which was written and published both by Mordecai Marco son of Nathan Luzzatto of Trieste and by Joseph Almanzi, even though the case did not reach a successful conclusion—expulsion of the spirits. There is no doubt that both the author of the report and those who disseminated it understood that the document had theological and social importance. It buttressed the balance of power between the religious leadership and the community by virtue of the former’s ability to communicate with the souls of the dead and through the didactic dialogue between Rabbi Marini and the spirits, and between Jews and Christians.58 Either way, as noted, the main goal of exorcism ceremonies was and remains to strengthen the onlookers’ religious beliefs in order to preserve the balance of power between the rabbi and the community. This objective was served in this unique case, too.

SUMMARY These two Italic documents reveal a fascinating glimpse of the fabric of Jewish life in Italy—a unique view of their culture and their interaction with the Christian culture. The underlying premise in the dybbuk documents that exists in these two Italic documents is that the living can help the dead. The soul rectified by learning mishnayot and reciting prayers can help the dead person get to purgatory to begin serving his sentence. However, new characteristics unique to Jews in Italy developed from the close connection between the Jewish community leaders and rabbis living among the Christian society. Connections between Christians and Jews in the same body of the possessed woman could teach us about such a connection (even if more psychological than physical) between the two societies, a connection that creates a great tolerance toward the different religion (at least in everyday life), and even internalization of beliefs and ideas from one culture to another. Moreover, perhaps there is symbolic meaning to be found in the fact that the dead souls were not exorcised but remained living in the same physical space.

58 I do not believe that the copyists’ forewords to these stories, in which they distort biblical verses in order to designate the date of copying and to link the verse to the topic of the text, express any skepticism about the reality of dybbuks, given that this was taken for granted in those years. See Nigal, “Spirit Possession,” xiii; Nigal, “Dybbuk” Tales, 13.

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CHAPTER 16

Rabbinic Ties between Italy and Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century LEAH BORNSTEIN-MAKOVETSKY

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uring the 1700s, close ties developed between the rabbis of Aleppo and the rabbinic authorities of the Italian communities, and especially the rabbis of Livorno. The rabbis in Aleppo, mostly Sephardic and some Must’arab, deliberated concerning contemporary issues of halakhic observance and Jewish custom that had taken shape in Italy. The Italian rabbis, on the other hand, mostly of Sephardic and Portuguese descent, discussed a variety of halakhic questions beyond the pale of contemporary practice, which had been sent to them by sages from Aleppo. During the same period, rabbis from Aleppo turned to Italy to have their books printed, mostly in the printing houses of Livorno, due to a lack of printing houses in Syria. The arrival of rabbis from Aleppo in Italian cities, and especially their visits to Livorno, connected to their efforts to oversee the publication of their works, provided the opportunity for extensive personal meetings and mutual acquaintance between the rabbinic leadership in Italy’s Jewish communities and their counterparts from Aleppo. The present article aims to summarize and assess the printed sources and manuscripts available to date, which shed light on the nature of the relationship facilitated by the contacts between the rabbis of some of the communities in Italy, especially Livorno and Aleppo. In light of this general summary and reconsideration, the article will introduce the particular issues discussed by the rabbinic scholars of Aleppo and Italy, thus forging a more complete understanding of their significance in their historical context.

Rabbinic Ties between Italy and Aleppo

ORIGINS AND BACKGROUND Aleppo’s location created the topographical conditions requisite for extensive local and international trade.1 The Livornese community was established by Marranos in the last decade of the sixteenth century and received autonomous rights as a community. The community built a synagogue in 1603, and flourished during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries until 1808, when Tuscany was incorporated into the French Empire. The members of the community spoke Portuguese and observed the Sephardic rituals. Many of the community residents were well-to-do merchants and provided charity to impoverished Jews in other countries. A large number of emissaries from Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safed visited Livorno, and received substantial contributions from the city’s Jews.2 The community appointed famous rabbis, most of them halakhic authorities and kabbalists, to the rabbinate office. We learn that the community functioned as a link between the Spanish and Portuguese Jews and the eastern Sephardic communities of the Ottoman Empire, Algeria, and Tunisia.3 Between 1650 and 1657 there was a Hebrew printing press in Livorno, and another was established there in 1703; these together issued many prayer books, especially for the East, in addition to kabbalistic and halakhic works. This background explains the good and strong relationships between the rabbis and kabbalists of Aleppo and the sages and wealthy residents of the community of Livorno. The first Francos, part Sephardic and Portuguese Jews who had come from Livorno with a minority from Venice, to begin operating in Syria, arrived in Aleppo as early as 1680. As time went on, and especially during the first 1 See Leah Bornstein-Makovetsky, A City of Sages and Merchants: The Community of Aleppo (Halab, Aram Tzova) during the Years 1492–1800 [in Hebrew] (Ariel: Ariel University Center of Samaria, 2012), 289–324, and the extensive bibliography ad loc. 2 Renzo Toaff, La Nazione Ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700) (Florence: Olschki, 1990); Devora Hacohen, “The Jewish Community in Livorno and Its Institutes during the 17th Century,” in Shlomo Umberto Nahon Memorial Book, ed. Gorgo Romano, Daniel Carpi, and Baruch Sarmonita ( Jerusalem, Shlomo Meir Institute, 1978), 107–28; Abraham Yaari, Eretz Israel Emissaries [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Masada, 1951), Index. 3 Isaac Avrahami, The Minute-Book of the Jewish Portugese Community in Tunis [in Hebrew], vol. 1 (Lod: Orot Hamaghreb, 1997); Hanna Avrahami, “The Spiritual Leadership of the Portugese Congregation in Tunis during the 18th and 19th Centuries” [in Hebrew] Michael 9 (1985): 9–26; Minna Rozen, “Les marchands juifs livournais à Tunis et le commerce avec Marseille à la fin du XVIIe siècle,” Michael 9 (1985): 87–129.

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years of the eighteenth century, they were joined by other European arrivals from Livorno and Venice. Some of the wealthy Francos in eighteenth-century Aleppo belonged to renowned rabbinic families of the time in Italian communities, mostly of Sephardic and Portuguese origin, such as Ergas, Belilious, and Rodriguez. The Francos in Aleppo maintained close economic ties with their relatives in Livorno and Venice.4 Some of them also won local acclaim as rabbinic scholars in Aleppo; the case of Rabbi Moshe Chai Piccioto can be cited as an example.5 In one particular instance, the young Franco Yitzhak Silvera studied Torah for a number of years at the yeshiva of Aleppo, but was left in financial distress following the death of his father Eliyahu, one of wealthiest Francos in the area. He went to Livorno, where he devoted himself to study and business for several years. In 1756, the leaders of the Livorno community wrote a letter of recommendation on his behalf to the rabbis of Istanbul, where Silvera wanted to settle. 6

BOOK PRINTING IN ITALY Prior to 1865, in the absence of a printing house in Aleppo, the only way for the rabbis of the city to publish their works was to have them printed in other countries. This generally meant going to the printers of Istanbul, Venice, and Livorno, and rabbis from Aleppo frequently made the trip to one of these communities for this purpose. An abundance of information has been preserved about this route, and the trek the authors interested in publishing their manuscripts had to undertake. Rabbi Yitzhak Beracha, one of the greatest Jewish scholars of Aleppo, printed his book of sermons, entitled Berach Yitzhak, in Venice in 1763. The leaders of the yeshiva in Venice, headed by Rabbi Simcha Kalimani, wrote an enthusiastic accompanying text as an imprimatur in support of the work. Many other texts authored by rabbis from Aleppo were published also in Livorno. Particularly prominent was Rabbi Yitzhak Attia, one of Aleppo’s greatest rabbinic leaders (1755–c. 1832), who spent several years in Livorno in 4 Bornstein-Makovetsky, A City of Sages and Merchants, 83–98; Leah Bornstein-Makovetsky, “The Jewish Economic Elite in Aleppo during the Ottoman Period (16th–18th Centuries)” [in Hebrew], The East and Maghreb 8 (2008): 192–203; Yaron Harel, “The Status and Image of the Piccioto Family as Perceived by Aleppo’s French Colony (1784–1850)” [in Hebrew], Michael 14 (1997): 171–86. 5 Piccioto authored the book Va-Yachel Moshe, composed of sermons on the Torah, in two parts (Vienna: Holzingir, 1814). He died in 1813. 6 London, Jewish College, Montefiore Ms. No. 126, pp. 30b–31a; Bornstein-Makovetsky, A City of Sages and Merchants, 95.

Rabbinic Ties between Italy and Aleppo

order to oversee the printing of his many works. There is evidence indicating that he stayed in Livorno during the years 1793–94, 1818, and then from the 1820s until 1831. The impressive list of his books printed in Livorno during his lifetime speaks for itself: Yikra Dechayei (1793); Pilpelet Kol She-hi (1793); Zera’ Yitzhak, in two volumes (1793–94); Ot Le-Tovah (1818); Rov Dagan (1818); Eshet Chayil (1821); Zekhut Avot (1821); Mesharet Moshe (1823); Doresh Tov and Vayikra Yitzhak (1826); Akev Anavah (1826); and Penei Ha-Mayim (1831). The rabbis of Livorno wrote imprimaturs, or texts voicing traditional endorsement, for only a few of the monographs listed above. Rabbis Meir Sangviniti, Eliezer Saadon, and Menashe Padova wrote an imprimatur in support of the book Zera’ Yitzhak (1793),7 and Rabbis Shlomo Malach, Amram Amar, and Mordechai Nissim similarly wrote a traditional imprimatur in support of the book Rov Dagan (1818).8 In their text of endorsement for the work, they noted other monographs by the same author, appealing to the readers with the request to extend their monetary support to him. Rabbis Yaakov Nunes Vais, Shmuel Ha-Kohen, and Shlomo Malach, all from Livorno, penned an imprimatur for the book Zekhut Avot (1821).9 All this provides a reasonable indication that Rabbi Yitzhak Attia established close ties with the rabbinic leadership of Livorno during the years he spent in Italy or while preparing to go there again. Another Jewish sage from Aleppo, Rabbi Ovadya Ha-Levi (1707–87), also made the journey to Livorno in connection with book printing. In 1787, two of his works were printed in Livorno: Chazon Ovadya and Chazon La-Mo’ed. The rabbis of Livorno did not write any statements of imprimatur in support of these texts, nor for a number of other works composed by rabbis from Aleppo. For instance, Bigdei Yesha, written by Rabbi Yeshaya Attia and then printed posthumously in 1827, remained unaccompanied by any text expressing local rabbinic support. 7 Together with other rabbis, these rabbis signed the epistle against religion reforms in 1796. See Rabbi Abraham Meir Vaaknin, “The Letters of Italy’s Rabbis against Germany Reformers in the Year 1796” [in Hebrew], Zefunot 2, no. 1 (1990): 83–8. Their signatures appear also in other books published in the community. The signature of Rabbi Amram Amar also appears in works written by North African rabbis. For example: Rabbi Abraham Koriat, Berit Avot (Livorno: Eliyahu Ben Amozeg, 1862); Rabbi Yosef Azoviv, Yamim Achadim (Livorno: A. Sa’adon, 1790). 8 Malach’s signature also appears on the above epistle (note 7); Rabbi Nissim and Rabbi Amar’s signatures appear in many other halakhic works published in Livorno. 9 They also penned imprimaturs for other works published in Livorno. Shlomo Malach served as a member of the communal court of law together with Rabbi Menachem Haim Azaria Meir Kastelnovo. See Rabbi Menachem Haim Azaria Meir Kastelnovo, Misgeret Ha-Shulchan (Livorno: Otolingi, 1840), 207a.

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We also learn that Rabbi Refael Shlomo Laniado (the Rashal), rabbi of Aleppo, had originally wanted to print three of his books in Livorno. Two Francos, David Altaras and Abraham Chaim Marini, who had agreed to finance the printing project, assisted him. The monographs were delivered to Livorno, where the Rashal had appointed a supervisor to be in charge of overseeing the printing work. However, the Rashal had misgivings about entrusting the books to the son of the late David Altaras in Aleppo,10 and eventually had the three books—Beit Dino Shel Shlomo, Hama’alot Le-Shlomo, and Lechem Shlomo— printed in Istanbul in 1775. An additional work, written by Rabbi Moshe Roza of Aleppo (d. c. 1810) and entitled Zikhron Tov, was printed in Livorno in 1845. Books by another Aleppo resident, the renowned Rabbi Yitzhak Antebi (1721–1804), were also printed in Livorno as texts incorporated into works authored by his son: Ohel Yitzhak was included in Yoshev Ohalim, written by the author’s son Rabbi Avraham Antebi (1825), and Beit Av was included in Penei Ha-Bayit, also by Rabbi Avraham Antebi (1849). Rabbi Eliyahu Shama (d. 1814), rabbi of Aleppo from 1805–14, published his first book, Kontres Machsirei Millah, in Livorno in 1793. His significant Korban Ishe was published posthumously in Livorno in 1821. The Livornese rabbis Shlomo Malach, Shmuel Ha-Kohen, and Yaakov Abukaya wrote an imprimatur for the work, praising the author and his son, Rabbi Yosef Shama, who took care of overseeing the printing project.11 It is not clear why the rabbis of Livorno wrote imprimaturs or texts expressing support for only a few of the works listed above.

HALAKHIC CORRESPONDENCE: INQUIRIES FROM ITALY DIRECTED TO THE RABBIS OF ALEPPO In addition to books, an important halakhic correspondence developed between the rabbinic leaders of the Italian communities and their colleagues in Aleppo. This development was due to two factors. One was the personal acquaintance of various rabbis from the Italian communities with rabbis from Aleppo, who brought their works to be printed in Italy. The second contributing factor was 10 Rabbi Shlomo Laniado, Beit Dino Shel Shlomo (Constantinople: Shmuel Ashkenazi, 1775), Author’s Preface. 11 Rabbi Yaakov Abukaya also signed the imprimatur of the book Isa Beracha, written by Rabbi Yehuda Shmuel Ashkenazi (Livorno: Ya’akov Tobiana, 1822).

Rabbinic Ties between Italy and Aleppo

a function of the presence of the Francos, who served as a connecting link between the spiritual leaders of the two communities. From the early eighteenth century on, Aleppo had an established reputation in the Jewish Diaspora as a city of famous rabbis and halakhic authorities. These spiritual leaders corresponded with many of their counterparts in the Ottoman Empire and in Western Europe, especially those in the Italian communities. In a number of cases, rabbinic authorities from Italy addressed inquiries to Aleppo, requesting the rabbis of the community to arbitrate in a series of halakhic controversies that arose in Italy.12 There were five such discussions:

1. The Liturgical Custom (Minhag) of Adding the Phrase “Zochreno Le-Chaim …” In 1710, the five rabbis from Aleppo, Moshe Harari, Shmuel Pinto, Shmuel Laniado, Shmuel Deweick Ha-Kohen, and Yosef Nawi, composed a responsum concerning the custom of inserting the words “zochreno le-chaim … etc.” into the traditional liturgy, which was sent to the author of the inquiry, Rabbi Yosef Ergas of Livorno, a Sephardic scholar and a native of the community.13 The responsum voiced support for Ergas’s decision concerning the liturgical practice, then current in Livorno, of pronouncing the additional prayer during the Ten Days of Repentance: “‫זכרנו לחיים‬ … ‫ וכתבנו בספר חיים למענך אלקים חיים אל חי מלך עוזר‬,‫“( ”מלך חפץ בחיים‬Remember us for life, O King favoring life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life, for Your sake, O living God, Powerful One, living, aiding King …”) as a part of the structure of the blessings forming the opening of the amidah, the principal element of the service, uttered three times daily. The halakhic inquiry concerning the additional wording inserted into the liturgical framework during the Days of Repentance was composed following the eruption of the great controversy in connection with this custom in Livorno. At the time of the heated debate, Ergas had maintained that the custom, then already in practice among Livorno’s rabbinic leaders who had been influenced by 12 Leah Bornstein-Makovetsky, “The Halakhic Decisions of the Sages of Aleppo during the 16th–18th Centuries,” Jewish Law Association Studies 14 (2004): 17–32. 13 He was born in Livorno in 1685 and died on May 19, 1730. Ergas wrote a number of polemical works against the Sabbatean Nehemia Hiya Hayun, and wrote some kabbalistic works. He was an influential posek and wrote Divre Yosef, a collection of sixty-eight responsa. His most famous pupil was Rabbi Malachi Hacohen.

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Lurianic Kabbalah, should be generally accepted and recognized. This would then become a general rule about inserting into the regular liturgical framework of the Amida the special addition, “zochreno le-chaim” up through the words “‫למענך אלקים חיים‬.” The words following this, “…‫אל חי‬,” should then be omitted. To circumvent claims regarding the fitness of Livorno’s rabbinic authorities to arbitrate in the ensuing halakhic debate, Ergas directed the inquiry to the rabbinic authorities of Izmir, Aleppo, and Egypt. He probably chose these places because of the considerable Franco presence in each of these three cities. A further reason probably had to do with the appreciable influence of kabbalistic teaching in these cities.

2. Return of the Torah Scroll (Chazarat Ha-Torah) and the “Ve-Avraham Zaken” (“Abraham was old …”) Biblical Reading The Italian rabbis also requested that the rabbinic leaders of Aleppo interfere in a halakhic dispute that swept through Italy and the Netherlands during the years 1736–43. The controversy centered on the customs of performing several times the return of the Torah Scroll (Chazarat Ha-Torah) during the Torah reading, and the bridegrooms’ reading of the section from the Pentateuch beginning with the words: “And Abraham was old, well stricken in age …” (Genesis 24:1). During his 1735–36 stay in Aleppo, Rabbi Emmanuel Chai Rikki issued a halakhic ruling banning the practice of “returning (chazarah) the Torah Scroll as is customary in these lands, such that the cantor [leader of the congregation in prayer] repeats the same reading several times without any use or benefit whatsoever.” He sent the text of his ruling to the rabbis at the yeshiva (academy of traditional Talmudic learning) in Aleppo. The rabbis were opposed to doing away with a custom that had struck deep roots in the Aleppo community. They ultimately came up with the halakhic ruling that no undesirable associations should be attached to the practice of summoning multiple members of the congregation to the reading of the same section of the biblical text, and that this did not involve the problem of a blessing uttered in vain. The city rabbi, Rabbi Shmuel Laniado, ratified the decision promulgated by the heads of the yeshiva in Aleppo. His son, Rabbi Shlomo (Shlomo Refael), known as the Rashal, c. 1733, wrote a responsum to the halakhic inquiry about the custom, then accepted in Aleppo, of the groom’s publicly reading the “Ve-Avraham zaken” section of

Rabbinic Ties between Italy and Aleppo

the biblical text. The Rashal’s position was that the section read by the groom in the text is not one of the seven parts into which the Sabbatical reading is divided, with different members of the congregation being called up to the Torah for the reading of each. The Rashal’s father, Rabbi Shmuel, confirmed his son’s decision. The ensuing discussion and the queries about the matter reached Rabbi Shmuel Laniado via Rabbi David Mildolla of Livorno, who had become involved in the controversy along with other leading contemporary Italian and Dutch halakhic authorities. The original, age-old Sephardic custom was that, on the Sabbath of the Groom, the seven members of the congregation called up to the Torah one by one should not read the whole of the weekly portion for that Sabbath, but that, instead, the groom should be the seventh to be called up to the Torah, and, regardless of what the weekly portion might be, should read the text of the “Ve-Avraham zaken” section from the book of Genesis. In the eighteenth century, this custom came to be considered halakhically unacceptable by the leaders of the Italian communities. However, Rabbi Eliezer Sofino, who served as rabbi of the city of Pisa in the 1730s and ’40s, continued to permit the grooms in his community to abide by the original custom. Rabbis Refael and David Mildolla of Livorno criticized him for this; in response, Sofino wrote a critical kuntres, or pamphlet, arguing against the views of his opponents. The Mildolla family burned all the copies of this work prior to the text’s initial distribution, except for the first copy. According to Professor Shmuel Glick, this one copy, personally proofread and verified by Sofino himself, survived. Many acclaimed rabbis were involved in the halakhic controversy surrounding the issue, including, in addition to the rabbinic authorities of Italy, rabbinic leaders of Tunisia, Algeria, Posen, and Aleppo. Rabbi David Mildolla first directed the inquiry about the issue to Rabbi Shmuel Laniado, who delegated the writing of the halakhic resolution to his son, the Rashal. This latter composed the text of an extensive responsum, ultimately ruling that the groom’s “Ve-Avraham zaken” reading should not be considered as one of the seven sections of the weekly portion read when different members of the congregation are called up to the Torah. In addressing his inquiry to the rabbinic luminary, Rabbi David Mildolla wrote lavish praises of Rabbi Shmuel Laniado.14 14 See Beit Dino Shel Shlomo, Orach Chaim, 17; Rabbi Tzedakah Hutzin, Tzedakah U-Mishpat ( Jerusalem: n.p., 1974), Orach Chaim, 4; Emmanuel Chai Rikki, Aderet Eliyahu, vol. 2 (Livorno: Mildola, 1742), 18a–21b. Rikki also wrote that his son would go to the synagogue when he married, but that he would not take a Torah scroll in his arm to read the text of “Ve-Avraham zaken” as is common practice, because of the risk of uttering a blessing in vain

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3. The Controversy concerning the Waw Kati’a (Truncated Letter Waw) in the Torah Scroll Rabbi Shmuel Laniado received a halakhic inquiry about the letter waw, which, according to halakhic norm, is to be inscribed in truncated form (i.e., with the form of the letter defective) in the text of the Torah Scroll (Numbers 25:12). Debate on this issue raged among the rabbinic authorities of Italy. The debate first erupted when the heads of the synagogue in Rovigo appealed to the rabbis of the Venice yeshiva, reporting that Rabbi David Corinaldi, by then a resident of the city for two years, had claimed that most of the Torah Scrolls in the community’s possession were unfit for ritual liturgical use because the letter waw in the word “shalom,” or “peace,” at the beginning of the “Pinchas” weekly portion (in the verse “‫הנני נותן לו את בריתי שלום‬,” “Behold, I give unto him My covenant of peace,” Numbers 25:12) in these scrolls was not “kati’a” (truncated). Corinaldi proclaimed the scroll unfit for public reading, a move made in accord with the view of Rabbi Menahem di Lonzano, author of Or Torah (Light of Torah), who considered it obligatory for the waw to be truncated. A halakhic debate ensued, since that same scroll had been in use for hundreds of years in the community, based on the authorization given by the greatest of the city’s rabbis. Some permitted the scroll’s continued use, while others forbade it. And, so, the leaders of the community appealed to the rabbis of Venice with the request that they state their view of the matter. The rabbis of Venice were divided in their opinion, and additional Italian rabbis took part in the debate, which lasted for ten years. The rabbi in Rovigo who had ruled against using the scroll sent his statement in writing to his son-in-law, the Gaon Yitzhak Pacifico, one of the greatest rabbis of Venice and the head of the local rabbinic court. Pacifico expressed his support of the ruling. Rabbis of the Venice yeshiva, who had ruled in favor of permitting the use of scrolls with an unbroken waw in the verse in question, raised objections against Pacifico, asking why he maintained such a stringent view, but he would not change his stance. He even went so far as to require that his own synagogue’s scrolls written with a normal waw be fixed. The debate in Venice (berachah le-vatalah). He testified that in the Ottoman Empire, young children recite the text by heart when the groom reads these verses, while others tend to read the text from the Pentateuch following the groom’s reading. See Shmuel Glick, Kuntres on the Saturday of the Wedding by Rabbi Eliezer b. Yaakov Sofino [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Rabbi Kook Institute, 2007), 17–18; Beit Dino Shel Shlomo, Orach Chaim, 12, 17; Rabbi David Mildola, Divrei David: Responsa (Amsterdam: Rofe, 1753), nos. 27–38.

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became ever more heated. The rabbinic authorities’ ruling in favor of the more lenient view (permitting the use of scrolls written with an unbroken waw) were joined by the rabbinic leaders of Padua, Mantua, Gorizia, and Ferrara, as well as well-known rabbis in Western Europe, including Rabbi Aryeh Leib of Amsterdam and his father-in-law, the “Chacham Tzvi.” The responsum of the rabbis of Venice was sent to the rabbi of the city of Aleppo, Rabbi Shmuel Laniado, probably reaching Aleppo in 1733. Laniado’s son, the Rashal, wrote a responsum of his own concerning the matter, post factum joining the proponents of the lenient view. The issue was brought up in rabbinic literature, in connection with the work of other rabbinic authorities in Eretz Israel and Italy, who dealt with the controversy.15

4. The Rabbinic Authorities of Italy Debate Priestly Ritual Uncleanness In 1734, Rabbi Shmuel Laniado, along with Rabbi Yehudah Katzin and Rabbi Mordechai Atzvan, authored a halakhic ruling concerning the ritual uncleanness of the kohanim (priests) in the Venice ghetto. They issued their decision following the request of the rabbis of significant communities in Italy, with Rabbi Yaakov Belilious of Venice at their head. The ruling issued by Belilious concerning the matter had provoked widespread controversy among his contemporaries, who had expressed consternation at his view, lauding instead the ruling issued by Rabbi Avraham Yitzhaki, a famous emissary from Jerusalem in Italy. Rabbi Tzedakah Hotzin of Aleppo (and later rabbi of Baghdad), also issued a ruling endorsing the decision of Aleppo’s rabbis. In addition, more and more rabbinic authorities in Italy, Jerusalem, and other communities became involved, issuing halakhic rulings concerning the question. The rulings issued by the rabbis of Italy are cited elsewhere; in particular, there are references to the kuntres or pamphlet authored by Rabbi Yaakov Belilious on the issue. The Jerusalem rabbis Nissim Chaim Moshe Mizrachi and his brother, Yisrael Meir Mizrachi, also wrote a responsum on the topic. Rabbi David Pardo objected to the decision issued by the two, and also to that of Rabbi Eliezer Nachum, instead voicing support for Rabbi Yaakov Belilious’s decision. In all likelihood, the fact that the 15 Beit Dino Shel Shlomo, Yore De’ah, 10; Rabbi Yitzhak Lamponti, Pachad Yizhak, vol. 7 (Venice: Fo’a and Ashkenazi, 1888), 185b–89a; Rabbi Yizhak Ha-Kohen Rapaport, Batei Kehuna: Responsa, vol. 3 (Salonica: Ashkenazi and Hazan, 1740), nos. 20–21; Rabbi Moshe Amarillio, Devar Moshe: Responsa, vol. 3 (Salonica: Besalel Halevi Ashkenazi, 1750), Yore De’ah, 8; Rabbi Simchah Chasida, “Kuntres on the Law of the Waw Kati’a of Shalom,” Moriya 29, nos. 3–4 (2001): 29–55.

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appeal to the rabbis of Aleppo shortly after the debate became so heated was a consequence of the Belilious family’s acquaintance with the Aleppo luminaries; besides, some of the Italian family members were among the leading Francos in Aleppo. The appeal to Aleppo came just a few years after the rabbinical dispute in Italy had reached its peak, as evidenced by the fact that a considerable number of the Italian rabbinical rulings in this regard were issued in 1728.16

5.  Inquiry concerning Card Games in Italy Sometime in the 1750s or ’60s, Rabbi Abraham Ergas of Livorno addressed a halakhic inquiry to the rabbis of Aleppo. The question had to do with a regulation announced in Livorno, which aimed to limit card playing in private homes, as well as to prohibit the Jewish public from playing cards in the homes of Gentiles or in coffeehouses. The Rashal issued a halakhic ruling on the matter, and prohibited the Jewish public from playing cards in the homes of Gentiles or in coffeehouses.17

HALAKHIC CORRESPONDENCE: THE RABBIS OF ALEPPO ADDRESS THEIR INQUIRIES TO RABBIS IN ITALY We have already seen that the rabbinical authorities of Aleppo issued halakhic decisions in response to inquiries from rabbis of Italian communities. Evidently, sometimes, albeit not too frequently, Aleppo rabbis sent their inquiries to the famous halakhic authorities in Italy. Thus, in the early eighteenth century, Rabbi Yosef Ergas answered questions sent to him by Rabbi Chaviv Ancona of Aleppo about the closing passages in tractate Kiddushin, and about laws of the Megillah. Ancona was a member of a well-known Franco family in Aleppo.18 16 Budapest, Hungary, David Kaufman Collection Ms. No. 164, pp. 604, 649–78; Hutzin, Tzedakah U-Mishpat (Tel Aviv: Friedman, 1975), Yore De’ah, 19; Rabbi Chaim b. Rabbi Yaakov David, Sama DeChayei Responsa (Amsterdam: Dayan, 1739), nos. 19–20; Pachad Yitzhak, vol. 3, no. 15; Rabbi Avraham Yitzhaki, Zera’ Avraham, vol. 1 (Istanbul: Yonah Ben Yaa’kov, 1732), Yore De’ah, 17; Rabbi David Pardo, Michtam Le-David: Responsa (Salonica: Kala’i and Nachman, 1772), Yore De’ah, 51; Rabbi Nissim Chaim Mizrachi, Admat Kodesh: Responsa, vol. 1 (Istanbul: Rossi, 1742), Yore De’ah, 22–3; Rabbi Eliezer Nachum, Chazon Nachum, Taharot (Istanbul: Ashkenazi, 1743), 251b–256b; David Joshua Malkiel, “Law and Architecture: The Pollution Crisis in the Italian Ghetto,” European Journal of Jewish Studies 4, no. 2 (2010): 255–84. 17 Beit Dino Shel Shlomo, Yore De’ah, nos. 3–4. 18 Rabbi Yosef Ergas, Divrei Yosef (Livorno: Mildola, 1742), nos. 54–5.

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Other inquiries from Aleppo to Italy were sent to the Hida (acronym of Rabbi Hayyim Yosef David Azulai) during the time he served as rabbi of Livorno, from the 1780s until his death in 1806. Some of the responsa that he wrote to the rabbinical sages of Aleppo were printed as a part of his books. One such responsum was sent to Rabbi Israel Sasson, dealing with a question in Birkei Yosef, Orach Chaim, 236;19 a different one was a responsum by the Hida to a long question from the Rashal in connection with the kuntres titled “A’in Zocher,” which the author had devoted to general rules of the Talmud (printed in 1793).20 Yet another responsum was sent to Rabbi Chaim Attiya; this dealt with a responsum by Rabbi Shmuel de Medina on Yore De’ah, 93.21 Similarly, the Hida responded to an anonymous query from Aleppo concerning the text of the “Kawanot Ha-Ari” (“Special Meditative Intentions of Rabbi Isaac Luria”).22 Rabbi Yitzhak Harari in Aleppo ruled in support of the position taken by the Hida, praising the halakhic directives issued by him.23 The admiration of the rabbis of Aleppo for the Hida is quite evident. Aleppo’s rabbinical leaders purchased the Hida’s works at great expense during his lifetime. The Hida sent lists of his works to different communities, including Aleppo.24 The fact that, overall, Aleppo’s rabbis rarely addressed halakhic inquiries to the rabbinical authorities in the cities of Italy sheds light on their appreciation of their own halakhic capability and authority, thus buttressing their sense of competence in issuing definitive halakhic rulings. It should be noted that rabbis from Aleppo were seldom appointed to serve as rabbis in Livorno. There was only one instance—that of the kabbalist Rabbi Mordechai Atzvan, who settled in Aleppo after a brief period when he served as one of the city rabbis in Livorno, where he had arrived in 1697 from Meknes (Morocco). Due to a halakhic dispute with Rabbi Abraham Rodriguez, Atzvan later moved to Aleppo, where he devoted himself primarily to Kabbalah, authoring a series of halakhic decisions and composing Zoveach Todah (1733), a confessional text on the limbs of the human body as corresponding to the 19 Rabbi Yosef Chaim David Azulai, Birkei Yosef, vol. 2 (Livorno: De Gio, 1774), no. 14. 20 Idem, Chaim Shaal, vol. 2 (Livorno: Sa'adon, 1795), no. 18. 21 Ibid., vol. 2, nos. 36–7. 22 Meir Benayahu, Chida—Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azukai ( Jerusalem, 1959), 109; Yosef Ometz, 44. Rabbi Israel Sasson frequently mentions the Hida in his work Kenesset Israel (Livorno: Vilforti, 1856). 23 Benayahu, Chida, 125–6. 24 Ibid., 150, 471.

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613 biblical commandments, as well as other works that were not printed and have not survived. He is referred to as the “wondrous rabbi,” ruling in matters of personal contact and monetary affairs; his decisions are mentioned in manuscripts, one of which is a responsum of 1735. In 1730, Atzvan is referred to with abundant praise, including phrases such as “the perfect sage, sacred pious man.” Apparently, in 1733, Atzvan made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He died in Aleppo in 1750, and posthumously was known as “the great Eagle.” Tales of his righteousness and the miracles that he wrought were common among the Jews of Aleppo.25 Unlike Rabbi Atzvan, who settled in Aleppo, the renowned Italian kabbalist Rabbi Emmanuel Chai Rikki (1689–1743), a native of Ferrara, spent a nomad’s bare two years in Aleppo in 1735–36. Here, in 1735, he wrote his Yosher Levav (Uprightness of Heart, Amsterdam, 1742), primarily devoted to the teachings of Lurianic Kabbalah. The work includes apocalyptic calculations, according to which the process of messianic redemption should begin in 1740 and conclude in 1781. At the end of the work, the author addresses a question that had also preoccupied the rabbis of Aleppo, about whether the practice of increasing the number of members of the congregation called up to the reading of the Torah (the multiple returns of the Torah, as discussed earlier in the present article) should be deemed worthy of endorsement.26 Rikki came to Aleppo to engage in trade. Here, he developed a fruitful relationship with the wealthy Franco Eliyahu Silvera, who helped realize the project of printing Emmanuel Chai Rikki’s works.27 In conclusion, ties between the rabbinic leaders of the two communities developed primarily in connection with the assistance given by the Italian 25 Rabbi Pardo, Michtam Le-David: Yore De’ah, 51; Moshe Amar, “The Sefro Sages’ Responsum of 1707 about Bedikat Ha-Sakin” [in Hebrew], Zefonut 1, no. 3 (1989): 24–29; Responsa of Rabbi Shmuel Laniado of Aleppo and His Colleagues, ed. Leah Borsntein-Makovetsky ( Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute 2016), iii–iv; Benayahu, Chida, 343–44; Rabbi Avraham Antebi, Mor Ve-Ohalot, Hoshen Mishpat (Livorno: Otolingi, 1843), 23; Budapest—Kaufmann Ms. No. 164 (see note 17 above), 661; Rabbi Mordechai Atzvan also brought the kabbalistic work Chemdat Yamim to Aleppo. There is a responsum by Atzvan dealing with questions of “Bein Hashmashot on the Sabbath”; Jacob Barnai, Eretz Israel Jews under the Patronage of Istanbul Officials [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 1982), 80. 26 There is a manuscript of the work indicating that it was carried out in Aleppo ( Jewish College, London, Ms. no. 126). 27 Rikki, Ma’ase Choshev (Venice: Bragadin, 1716), Author’s Preface; idem, Chaze Tzion (Livorno: Mildola, 1742), Author’s Preface; idem, Mishnat Chassidim (Amsterdam: Zoshmansh, 1764), Author’s Preface; Arye Morgenstern, Mystic and Messianism [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Ma’or, 1999), 19–36.

Rabbinic Ties between Italy and Aleppo

community rabbis to their counterparts from Aleppo in printing their works, as well as in connection with halakhic authorities on questions of halakhah. We have seen that rabbis in the Italian communities, especially in Livorno, addressed their halakhic inquiries, which had provoked controversy about current halakhic practice in Italy, to the rabbinical authorities of Aleppo, while Aleppo’s rabbinical leadership turned only to the rabbi of Livorno, Hida, inquiring about issues without any current practical halakhic import. This famous posek and kabbalist was born in Jerusalem, under the tutelage of the most renowned rabbis of the community. He lived in Hebron and, during the years 1755, 1770, and 1781, served as the community emissary to Western Europe and North Africa. He published most of his books in Livorno and, in 1778, married his second wife. He remained in Livorno until his death in 1806.28 We can understand that Aleppo’s rabbis had prior familiarity with him before his settling in Livorno and continued their ties with him until his death. Rabbis from Aleppo did not immigrate to any Italian community, but a number of them did spend considerable time in Livorno while getting their books printed. Of the rabbis originally from Italy, only Rabbi Mordechai Atzvan, the son of Rabbi Itzhaq of Meknes (Morocco), settled in Aleppo in the eighteenth century,29 while Rabbi Emmanuel Chai Rikki lived in Aleppo for only two years. It is likely that, during the eighteenth century, the rabbis of Aleppo preferred to live in Aleppo itself, a city of scholars and merchants, where most of them belonged to famous and well rooted Sephardic and Must’arab families. They found their subsistence in the community of Aleppo, where many of them played important roles in the local religious leadership. However, most of the rabbis and dayanim of the city of Livorno belonged to Spanish and Portuguese families, and were appointed by the community leaders to the rabbinate office and to the Jewish court of law for a limited time. We can assume that Aleppo’s rabbis preferred the warmth of their community to a career in a Western Europe community.

28 See Benayahu, Chida. 29 Rabbi Mordechai Atzvan was the pupil of Rabbi Moshe Berdugo in Meknes.

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Part Four The Contemporary Period CHAPTER 17

Jewish Solidarity: The Actions and Support of the Union of Italian Israelite Communities for the Jews of Libya and Ethiopia in the 1930s YITZHAK MUALEM

T

he relationships and connections among the Jewish people are based on the central tenet of mutual responsibility. The common destiny of the Jewish people since the days of the Second Temple invariably led to their assistance and intervention on behalf of their fellow Jews around the world. This activity increased from the nineteenth century on, with the development of nationalism in Europe, and was characterized during this period by lobbying activities of Jewish leaders and organizations.1 The involvement and assistance by these entities on behalf of Jewish communities became significant and important when these

1 Daniel Elazar and Stuart Cohen, Adat Bnei Yisrael [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs—Reuven Mass, 1997), 202–59; Allon Gal, “Jewish Solidarity and the Version of Zionism as a Refuge,” in National Jewish Solidarity in the Modern Period [in Hebrew], ed. Ilan Troen and Binyamin Pinkus (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University, 1988), 279–303.

Jewish Solidarity

communities were spiritually and physically distressed. This activity demonstrated the existence of Jewish solidarity among all parts of the Jewish people.2 We will discuss the connection and relationship between the Rome-based Union of Italian Jewish Communities (Unione delle Communità Ebraiche Italiane) and the Jews of Libya and Ethiopia under Mussolini’s Fascist regime. The framework for the theoretical discussion of this study encompasses the Diaspora phenomenon and the relationships existing among the different communities comprising this Diaspora. Between the years 1930–38, the union had influence within Italian society and on its political system. We will therefore examine whether, and to what extent, this status had an impact and contributed to a policy change of the Fascist regime toward the Jewish communities of Libya and Ethiopia.3 With regard to the Jewish community in Libya, we will consider the contribution of the union toward a change in the regime’s policy on the issue of Sabbath observation and related laws. With regard to the Jewish community in Ethiopia, we will study the relationship and ties through a review and analysis of the mission of union representative Carlo Alberto Viterbo to Ethiopia, in the second half of the 1930s. We will also discuss whether or not there was a difference in the nature of the union’s activities in these two arenas, and, if so, what caused it. Under Italian constitution and law, the union represented all Jewish communities in Italy as well as the communities in Libya and Ethiopia. The significance of this representation was the expression of Jewish solidarity between the union and the different communities during the period of Fascist rule. This article will focus on the relations established between the union and the Jewish communities in Libya and Ethiopia, and will raise the following question: whether, and to what extent, did the union endeavor realize the principles of Jewish solidarity with regard to the Jewish communities in Libya and Ethiopia in the 1930s? In order to analyze the essential character of Jewish solidarity in this case, we will argue that as the situation of the Jews in Libya and Ethiopia deteriorated in the years 1930–37, the union increased its tendency to assist the Jews in these 2 Ilan Troen and Binyamin Pinkus, eds., National Jewish Solidarity in the Modern Period [in Hebrew] (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University, 1988), 279–303; George Green, “Unity and Contrast, Jewish Solidarity and Disagreement in Israeli-Diaspora Relations” [in Hebrew] Kivunim 1 (1978): 99–129. 3 Renzo De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Maariv, 1980); Meir Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Yad Vashem—Mossad Bialik, 1990); De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo (Torino: Einaudi, 1972).

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communities on the basis of the common Jewish interest. However, this collaboration was dependent on the degree of shared interests held by the union and the goals of the Fascist regime. Thus, when a change took place in the regime’s policy, as with Mussolini’s adoption of Hitler’s racial policies, so changed the attitude of the government toward the Jewish communities in Italy, Libya, and Ethiopia.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK We will explore the nature and essence of solidarity between the Jewish communities in the Diaspora through two theoretical research tools, each with its own separate contribution: solidarity and the Diaspora model. Using the concept of solidarity, we will aim to understand the nature and scope of the relationships that exist between the different sections of the Jewish people. Through the concept of Diaspora, we will try to understand the nature of the political and ethno-national processes reflected in the relevant period in the relations between the union in Italy and the Jewish communities in Libya and Ethiopia. At this point, I will define solidarity, and Jewish solidarity in particular, as a tool and framework for understanding and analyzing the activity of the union in Italy, Libya, and Ethiopia. Solidarity is an expression of feelings of unity based on common interests, goals, and objectives between people.4 That is, in this framework there exist social relations that bind people to one another. Émile Durkheim, who studied the development of societies and the emergence of social change, emphasized the existence of social solidarity as an explanation for understanding the social relations and the degree of social cohesion.5 He made a distinction between mechanical solidarity, which explains the conduct of traditional societies, and organic solidarity, which deals with the conduct of modern societies.6 In this case study, the more suitable definition is mechanical solidarity. At the basis of this distinction lies the consciousness of connection and attachment among people close to each other socially and culturally.7

4 Randall Collins, Four Sociological Traditions (New York–Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 159–63; Florence Passy, “Political Altruism and the Solidarity Movement,” in Political Altruism?: Solidarity Movements in International Perspective, ed. Marco Giugni and Florence Passy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 6–7; Oliver Filleule, “Dynamics of Commitment in the Sector Known as Solidarity,” in Giugni and Passy, Political Altruism, 61. 5 Collins, Four Sociological Traditions, 203–10. 6 John Macionis, Sociology [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Open University, 1999), 113–14. 7 Op. cit., 638.

Jewish Solidarity

In terms of the homogenous definition of the Jewish people, and the existence of shared similarities along lines of religion, faith, mutual dependence, and responsibility, Jewish solidarity is defined, therefore, as mechanical. According to Durkheim, this situation exists when this solidarity is based on a tradition, adherence to moral values, and beliefs on which society’s ability to exist depends.8 The concept of mechanical solidarity is intended, therefore, to help explain and analyze the reciprocal relationships between the Jewish communities in the Diaspora. Jewish solidarity will be examined according to the extent of social cohesion that exists between the different sections of the Jewish people. As Robert Merton argues, this type of solidarity should be examined according to its shared cultural norms and values​​.9 The concept of social solidarity came ab o ut to examine the nature and character of relationships in a given society. The examination of this phenomenon in a national context requires the expansion of our discussion on the issue of solidarity. The examination of solidarity among the various parts of the nation scattered across the globe will be achieved through an analysis of the Diaspora phenomenon, and an examination of the social and political ties between the various sections comprising the Jewish ethno-national Diaspora. John Armstrong described a diaspora a s “a collective of a nation’s minorities located in different countri e s.”10 According to Gabriel Sheffer, this phenomenon resulted from the migration of people from one ethno-national mother country to several host countries. A diaspora’s members are citizens of the countries (such as Italy’s Jews) or permanent residents in the host countries (such as the Jews of Libya and Ethiopia).11 The main characteristic of this phenomenon is the determination to maintain ethno-national identity and ties with the mother country—the homeland. 12 Community members are active within established organizations in economic, cultural, social, and political areas on behalf of fellow members and other communities in the Diaspora, as part of supra-state social and political networks.13 8 Op. cit., 478–79. 9 Robert Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Ramat Gan: Yachdav, 1971), 456. 10 John A. Armstrong, “Mobilized Proletarian Diasporas,” American Political Science Review 70, no. 2 (1976): 393–408. 11 Gabriel Sheffer, “Israel and the Jewish Diaspora from a Worldview Perspective,” in Jewish Peoplehood [in Hebrew], ed. Naama Tzabar-Ben Yehoshua, Gideon Shimoni, and Nurit Chemo (Tel Aviv: Beit Hatfutzot, 2008), 147; Robin Cohen, “Diasporas and the Nation-state: From Victims to Challengers,” International Affairs 72, no. 3 (1996): 507–20. 12 Gabriel Sheffer, “Is the Jewish Diaspora Unique?” [in Hebrew], Gesher 142 (2011): 23–37. 13 Gabriel Sheffer, “Towards Reexamination of Israeli-Diaspora Relations,” Gesher 137 (1998): 23–31.

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These solidarity activities are aimed at preserving the ethno-national identity, to bring the different communities closer, and to help in crisis situations imposed on the communities by a hostile environment in which they exist and operate. Therefore, examining the mobilization of the union for Jews of Libya and Ethiopia will be reflected in this theoretical framework that combines both the social solidarity dimension and that of the ethno-national Diaspora. Jewish solidarity is, therefore, the sense of unity and shared destiny among the members of the Jewish people. Based on this solidarity, Charles Liebman and Daniel Elazar defined the Jewish people as a worldwide political community that has been developing since the destruction of the Second Temple.14 Jews around the world have nurtured a sense of shared destiny that has intensified over the years due to continued Jewish existence in exile. Jews were community members and citizens of the countries in which they lived, but they also developed diversified relationships with fellow Jews all over the globe.15 Over the years, Jewish solidarity became accepted in the Jewish consciousness as a framework for action to save victims of persecution. Eliezer Bashan limited the definition of this rescue phenomenon to the framework of the religious commandment to redeem captives, both individuals and the public, from arrest, the threat of death, and enforced conversion. Their dispersion across different communities around the world and the existence of Jewish solidarity, based on love for fellow Jews and the sense of duty, produced the phenomenon of redemption of Jewish prisoners.16 Ilan Troen outlines the characteristics and expressions of Jewish solidarity in this context.17 He claims that the sense of commitment to act on behalf of Jews is rooted in the tradition of centuries of exile. Apart from the redemption of captives commandment and its various manifestations, Troen claims also that Jewish solidarity includes assistance in the educational, cultural, and spiritual areas, which ensures the continued survival of the Jewish people wherever they might be, whether in physical danger or in a cultural, spiritual danger. 14 Daniel Elazar, “The Community from its Inception to the End of the Modern Era,” in Am v‘Edah [in Hebrew], ed. Daniel Elazar ( Jerusalem: Rubin Mass Ltd. and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 1991), 174–207; Charles Liebman, “Moral Elements and Symbols in the Politics of Israeli-Diaspora Relations,” Am v‘Edah, 127–35. 15 Daniel Elazar, “Israel–American Jewish Relations in the Context of the World Jewish Polity,” Kivunim 3 ( June 1979): 93–116; Cohen, “Diasporas and the Nation-state,” 508–509. 16 Eliezer Bashan, Captivity and Ransom in Mediterranean Jewish Society (1391–1830) [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1980), 19–27. 17 Ilan Troen, “The Organized Rescue of Jews in the Modern Period,” in Troen and Pinkus, National Jewish Solidarity, 3–18.

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Expressions of this Jewish solidarity will be examined, as aforementioned, in the activity of the union vis-à-vis the Jews of Libya and Ethiopia.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNION OF ITALIAN JEWISH COMMUNITIES In the second half of the 1920s, the policy of the Fascist regime in Italy underwent changes. At this point in time, the characteristics of the regime policy changed from authoritarian to totalitarian, with the aim of facilitating the Fascist party’s gain of complete control over all strata of government and all walks of life in Italian society.18 As part of this policy, Mussolini wanted to unite all the Jews in Italy in a single framework, which would serve as a useful tool for governmental control of Italian Jewry, and would enable the Jews of Italy to be part of the Fascist political system.19 This process was part of the regime’s policy, which aimed at controlling the spiritual and religious life of all its citizens. In this context, a Concordat was signed in 1929 between Mussolini and Pope Pius XI. This agreement stated that a single educational framework would be determined, to be controlled by the regime and its allies in the Roman Catholic Church.20 Thus, the education in Italy would be Catholic and uniform for all Italian Christians. Within this national organizational framework, Mussolini and his Jewish Italian allies in general, and particularly within the Fascist Party, found a way to express the Jews’ loyalty to the regime and the inclusion of the Jewish community in Italy and its colonies within an Italian cooperative social framework and political system.21 The Union of Italian Jewish Communities—Unione delle Communità Ebraiche Italiane (the union)—was founded with the aim of organizing contemporary Italian Jewry around representational national organizations that set down one policy for all Jewish communities in the country. The law founding the union, established in 1931, was, therefore, the product of collaboration between Fascist government factors and representatives of the Jewish community. 18 Binyamin Neuberger, Fascist Italy [in Hebrew] (Raanana: Open University, 2009), 133–36; Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Ofakim—Am Oved, 2004), 182–92; Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981), 138–69; Max Gallo, Mussolini’s Italy (New York: Macmillan Publishing,1973), 204–43. 19 Ruth Bezalel, The History of the Jews in Italy [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Massada, 1962), 298. 20 Neuberger, Fascist Italy, 163–66; Yael Orbito, “Italian Jewish Leadership during Fascist Rule and the Holocaust” [in Hebrew], Bishvil Ha-Zikaron 36 (2000): 41. 21 Bezalel, The History of the Jews in Italy; Neuberger, Fascist Italy, 170–76.

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This organization consisted of twenty-six Jewish communities in Italy and those of Libya and Ethiopia.22 The goal of the union was to unite all the Jews in Italy and the various other communities in a single, officially recognized, social framework. This goal served the interests of the regime in terms of control and concentration, but also served the interests of the Jews of Italy: for the first time, there existed a larger framework that would legally regulate the cultural and religious activities of the Jews in Italy.23 A number of regulations were announced to regulate the Jewish community’s cultural and religious life in Italy.24 These regulations defined the legal status of Jewish communities throughout Italy and its colonies. In addition, the law stated that every Jew was registered automatically at his local Jewish community, to which he had to pay taxes and by whose rules he had to abide.25 This new form of organization was granted full judicial rights, including the right to levy taxes on members, and it became the official representative of the community before the Fascist regime; in this context, the Chief Rabbi of Rome became the Chief Rabbi of Italy and its colonies.26 The reality of a centralized Fascist regime impeded the activity and ability of the union to implement its activities based on the characteristics of Jewish solidarity both in Italy itself and in Libya and Ethiopia, as we will discuss later. Moreover, it should be noted that objections to the organization’s activities emanated also from the Jews themselves, some of whom expressed their absolute loyalty to the regime in Rome.27 However, the ability of the union leaders to create a basis for cooperation with the Fascist leadership helped them realize the union’s goals.

22 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 84; Michele Sarfatti, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy (Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 65. 23 Bezalel, The History of the Jews in Italy, 299. 24 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews; Sarfatti, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy. 25 Daniel Carpi, “The Jews of Italy: Description and Religious, Social, Political and Economic Conditions” [in Hebrew], Machanaim 66 (1962): 112; Orbito, “Italian Jewish Leadership,” 41. 26 Bezalel, The History of the Jews in Italy, 298. 27 Mario Schneider, “Jews and Fascists,” in Zman Yehudi Chadash—Tarbut Yehudit Be-idan Chiloni Mabat Enziklopedi, vol. 4 ( Jerusalem: Posen-Lamda Spinoza Institute, 2007), 28– 30; Yael Orbito, “Italian Jewish Leadership,” 42; Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 93. See influence of antisemitic publicity and propaganda in Italy in this period in Anselmo Calo, “Stampa e Propaganda Antisemita Del Regime Fascista Prima Delle Leggi Razziali (1936– 1938),” in Israel, Un decennio, 1974–1984, ed. Francesco Del Canto (Roma: Carucci, 1984), 115–63.

Jewish Solidarity

THE UNION AND THE JEWS OF LIBYA: ISSUES OF EDUCATION AND TRADE ON THE SABBATH Following its occupation of Libya in 1911, Italy granted the local Jewish authorities three statutes (1916, 1928, and 1931). The third statute expressed the change in policy of the Fascist regime in the social sphere. This statute determined that the communities of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica would be part of the union, and subject to it, like the other Jewish communities in Italy.28 The significance of this section of the statute was that the union would serve as the representative and spokesperson of the two communities in Libya before the authorities in Rome. Indeed, when the Sabbath issue erupted (concerning the opening of high schools, teaching colleges, and businesses on Saturday in the New Tripoli area in the 1930s), the union turned to the authorities in Rome, out of Jewish solidarity, to bring about a change of policy toward the Jews. Italy’s occupation of Libya brought the two Jewish communities closer.29 The cooperation between the two communities increased due to the impoverished situation of Libyan Jewry. The Jews of Rome felt compelled to aid the Jews of Libya financially and socially. The majority of the Jews of Libya lived off mendicancy and donations. The social and cultural gaps between the communities increased the tendency among Italian Jewry, which perceived itself as the senior of the two, to provide its sister community with physical and spiritual aid.30 Although the Jewish community in Libya was a traditional community, and the Jewish community in Italy was modern and partly assimilated, Jewish solidarity was expressed when the Fascist regime changed its cultural and religious policy toward the former. The economic and social situation of the Jews in Libya was grave, since the majority had to grapple with existential financial difficulties. The gaps between rich and poor increased. Socially, the Jews were at their lowest ebb, with a profusion of prostitution, gambling, alcoholism, intermarriage, and conversion to Islam.31 To complete this dismal picture, one must add the continuous struggle between Jews and Muslims in Libya.32 This resulted in the demand, within the 28 Irit Avramsky-Blei, Pinkas Hakehilot: Libya, Tunisia [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1997), 50. 29 Morris M. Romney, “The Zionist Struggle to Transform the Libyan Community at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century” [in Hebrew], Mikedem Umiyam–Mechkarim Beyahadut Artzot Ha-Islam (Haifa: Haifa University, 1981), 251–78. 30 Avramsky-Blei, Pinkas Hakehilot, 55–57. 31 De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 89–135. 32 Avramsky-Blei, Pinkas Hakehilot, 57–58.

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Jewish leadership in Libya, for social change through dialogue with the Jewish leaders in Rome.33 The goal was to bring about the integration of Libyan Jews into modern life. With this aim, Governor Pietro Badoglio proposed in January 1932 (and again in June 1935) that Libyan Jews serve in the Italian army, as the recruitment of young Jews into the army would change their social status.34 However, this proposal never came to pass and was dropped from the governor’s agenda. Instead, Badoglio decided that the integration of Libyan Jews into modern society would be achieved through change in the area of education. From the days of Ottoman rule, Jewish students had been permitted to absent themselves from school on Saturdays despite the formal attendance requirement. However, in December 1932, according to an administrative decision of Governor Badoglio, attendance of students in high schools and teachers’ colleges on Saturday became mandatory. Those who did not show up were expelled from school.35 The purpose of this decision, according to the governor, was to foster the integration of young Jews in Libya and Italy. He argued that this assertion was grounded in the fact that, in Italy, Jewish high school students attended school on Saturday as well as in Libya itself. The leadership of Libya’s Jewish community was inclined to accept the governor’s order, wishing to improve the economic and social situation of young Jews in Libya. The community leadership turned to the union leadership and asked them to influence its own local religious leadership to instruct the students’ parents to allow their children to attend school on Saturday. According to Angelo Arbib, one of the Jewish community leaders in Tripoli, it was believed that the mandatory Sabbath attendance at the high schools and teachers’ colleges would facilitate the young people’s economic integration at a later stage.36 In Arbib’s letter to the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Rabbi Angelo Saccardetti, he requested Saccardetti’s intervention in convincing the rabbis in Tripoli to comply with Governor Badoglio’s order.37 However, since the

33 De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 150–51. 34 Ibid., 152. 35 See correspondence between Badoglio and the Jewish community in Libya concerning the mandatory requirement of high school pupils to attend school on Saturdays, from December 10, 1932 to February 23, 1933, in the Jewish Diaspora Archives, Jerusalem, IT/Lib-A15; Yaakov Liluf-Hajaj, The History of the Jews of Libya [in Hebrew] (Or Yehuda: The Institute for the Study and Research of Libyan Jewry, 2000), 72–73; De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 152. 36 De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 153. 37 See correspondence between Angelo Arbib and Chief Rabbi of Rome, Angelo Saccardetti, between December 19, 1932 and February 10, 1933, Jewish Diaspora Archives, Jerusalem, IT/Lib-A15.

Jewish Solidarity

issue pertained to religious law, Rabbi Saccardetti could not support this application. This order aroused resentment among the majority of Libyan Jews, who did not want to send their children to study on the Sabbath. The rabbinical court of the Jews of Libya filed a protest at the governor’s office and threatened anyone who intended to follow the new orders.38 Pressure on this issue originated with the parents, who mostly opposed this regulation. Their determined objection resulted in a strong response on the part of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, who claimed that it was a religious prohibition to attend school on the Sabbath39—despite the fact that many of the Jewish children and youth in Italy did in fact do so. In addition, the newspaper of the Jewish community in Rome published a long article supporting the claims of the Libyan Jews for the cancellation of the governor’s new regulation.40 The local community leadership tried to resolve the crisis peacefully by compromising with the Italian authorities, with various suggestions: enabling the students to refrain from writing in class or holding parallel classes for the Jews in which the Sabbath would be observed.41 However, the pressure and distress of the Libyan Jews resulted in the intervention of the union leaders to take action against the government in Rome under the mandate given to them as the representative body of all Jews under Italian rule. To this end, the union president, Felice Ravenna, requested an urgent meeting with the governor. However, the meeting, held on February 8, 1933, did not achieve the desired results.42 The governor invited Ravenna to visit Libya and to examine the issue closely. Ravenna turned to the colonial secretary in Rome, whose attitude in this matter was more open, but who hinted that only the governor had the authority to change the order.43 Felice Ravenna and the Chief Rabbi of Padua, Gustavo Castelbolognesi, arrived in Tripoli in July 1933 to negotiate with the governor. This meeting also came to nothing.44 However, as a general solution to the Libyan Jews’ problems 38 De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land; see letter from Felice Ravenna, Union president, dated January 31, 1933, to Barda Gabriel, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Tripoli, on the severity of the problem caused by the governor’s announcement to open schools on Saturdays, Jewish Diaspora Archives, Jerusalem, IT/Lib-A15. 39 De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land. 40 Chaim Calphon, Lanu Ulevanenu [in Hebrew] (Netanya: Yad Lagiborim Libyan Synagogue & Community Center, 1986), 70. 41 Avramsky-Blei, Pinkas Hakehilot, 59. 42 De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 155. 43 Op. cit., 156–57. 44 Op. cit.

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following the meeting with the Jews of Tripoli, the union decided to appoint for them a dominant and influential rabbi from Italy who would be active in moral, religious, and social issues. This official would represent the community’s interests before the authorities in Libya, which would thus improve the situation of the Jews of Libya. The union appointed Rabbi Castelbolognesi to this position.45 Over the following months, further attempts were made to meet with the governor and the colonial secretary. On August 30, 1933, President Ravenna sent a letter to Governor Badoglio in which he repeated his request to cancel the order due to its damaging effect on the Jews in Libya, but to no avail.46 Moreover, the governor would not accept any letters of absence from parents who absented their children from school on Saturdays.47 At this stage, the community had to decide how to deal with the youth consequently expelled from school. Their solution was to establish high schools in the community—but this was not feasible due to the community’s problematic economic situation. Deliverance came with the replacement of Governor Badoglio following dissatisfaction with him in Rome.48 His successor was Governor Italo Balbo, a general and hero of the Italian air force, known for his favorable attitude toward the Jews. He compromised with the Jews on the issue of education. With Balbo’s arrival in Tripoli, the union’s goal was to bring about an immediate policy change. And indeed, on his appointment as governor, Balbo was approached by President Ravenna and Rabbi Castelbolognesi, in his capacity as chief rabbi of the community of Libya and the union’s envoy, to change the policy.49 In his first days in office as governor, Balbo was determined not to change the policy. After a period of repeated requests, however, he agreed to establish parallel classes for the Jewish youth, where no one would be compelled to write on the Sabbath and Jewish festivals.50 Mussolini, whom Chief Rabbi Saccardetti approached with this solution, also accepted this change.51 Mussolini gave his consent on the issue of education in Libya due to his clear focus on realizing Italian interests, and the understanding that he should avoid unnecessary confrontations that could harm this interest. Thus, the ability and influence of the 45 Calphon, Lanu Ulevanenu, 70. 46 See letter from Felice Ravenna to Governor Badoglio dated August 30, 1933. Jewish Diaspora Archives, Jerusalem, IT/Lib-A15. 47 De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 157. 48 Calphon, Lanu Ulevanenu. 49 De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani, 198–201. 50 Op. cit., 168. 51 Op. cit.

Jewish Solidarity

union to bring about change on this issue increased when its own goals were in agreement with Italy’s national goals.52 Yet Balbo’s general policy regarding Libya was detrimental to the Jews of Libya in general and the Jews of Tripoli in particular. In his view, Libya, which was a burden on the Italian economy, could become an economic asset instead. Thus, Libya’s economic situation had to be transformed through large-scale economic projects.53 The goal was to make Libya and especially the city of Tripoli a tourist center and a magnet for Italian migration. One such place was the market area of the New Tripoli area, where there were a large number of Jewish-owned stores.54 At first, Balbo claimed that serious economic damage resulted from the fact that the port was closed for two days a week, Saturday and Sunday, because most of the customs agents were Jewish. He therefore issued an order in January 1934 for the port to operate on Saturdays. This posed a difficult challenge for the Jewish port workers, which they solved by retraining.55 Nevertheless, this problem became acute when, on November 14, 1936, at the end of the Ethiopian War, Governor Balbo issued an order that required all citizens to open their shops every day except for Sunday.56 This meant that Jews would be compelled to open their shops on Saturdays. Balbo’s order ignited a wave of protest among the Jews in Libya as well as among world Jewry, in Palestine, and in Italy. The union leaders, led by Felice Ravenna, turned to the colonial secretary in Rome with the request that the order be amended—or at least postponed.57 The union’s ability once again was put to the test: when it demanded the cancellation of an official Italian policy, its impact was minimal. However, working behind the scenes, as part of ongoing negotiations, the union had greater impact thanks to its connections in Rome, and by taking care to avoid directly attacking the sovereignty of the regime or its official policy. 52 Avramsky-Blei, Pinkas Hakehilot, 59. 53 See regarding the life and activity of Governor Italo Balbo in Claudio G. Serge, Italo Balbo: A Fascist Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 54 See the socioeconomic explanation given by Governor Balbo on this issue, in De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani, 173. 55 Liluf-Hajaj, History of the Jews of Libya, 73; De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani, 168. 56 De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani, 172; See document on Governor Italo Balbo’s explanations regarding his policy in the area of the New Tripoli in De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani, 525; “Italy,” The American Jewish Year Book 5698 39 (1937): 374. 57 See letter from Felice Ravenna to Italian colonial secretary of November 23, 1936, Jewish Diaspora Archives, Jerusalem, IT/Lib-A28.

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The first Saturday when the order was implemented was December 5, 1936. The Jews in New Tripoli refrained from opening their shops. As a result, around two hundred people were arrested, and three were flogged as a punishment.58 The ensuing public protest in Libya and the Jewish world resulted practically in the changing of this policy. According to Renzo De Felice, Balbo used economic rationale, but the response led him to retreat from the entire plan, which included a similar order to open the shops on Saturday in Benghazi, too.59 The riots that erupted with the order’s implementation on the two first Saturdays of December 1936 caused discontent among the authorities in Rome, who did not agree with this policy. Balbo delayed the implementation of the order, but did endeavor to improve the economic situation of the Jews in Libya as part of his cooperation with the incoming chief rabbi of the Jews of Libya, Rabbi Aldo Lattes, the newly appointed union envoy sent to Libya from Rome.60 Rabbi Lattes lacked the stature of the rabbis who had preceded him— Rabbi Artom in the 1920s or Rabbi Castelbolognesi in the 1930s. However, he was a man of action who found a way to cooperate with the governor. He was able to bring about improvements in the area of religion, but more notably in the community’s social sphere, and in its relations with Governor Balbo.61 Rabbi Lattes gained the confidence of the governor, which made a significant difference to Jewish life in Tripoli and in Libya as a whole. His scope of activity included battling alcoholism and gambling, which were prevalent in the community, increasing religious education anrd preserving Jewish family values, and strengthening the Jewish schools. Moreover, he also acted forcefully against the phenomenon of mendicancy that was rife among the Jews in Libya.62 Both decrees, regarding education and commerce on Saturdays, were initiated by the government in Rome with the intention of bringing positive change to the lives of the Jews in Libya. Their aim was to integrate the Jews into the modernization of Libya rather than to burden then with regulations and decrees. Therefore, the union, in its endeavors to prevent the desecration of the Sabbath

58 De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani, 174; Liluf-Hajaj, History of the Jews of Libya, 74; Avramsky-Blei, Pinkas Hakehilot, 60. 59 See letter from Governor Balbo to Italian colonial secretary on the opening of stores in Tripoli as a first stage and in Benghazi as a second stage, of December 15, 1936, in De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani, 526. 60 Calphon, Lanu Ulevanenu, 75–77; Avramsky-Blei, Pinkas Hakehilot, 60. 61 De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani, 75–78. 62 See on this issue the report by Rabbi Lattes to the Union dated June 8, 1936, Jewish Diaspora Archives, Jerusalem, IT/Lib-C12.

Jewish Solidarity

in these two instances (education and commerce) was able to make a difference by using its influence within the political system of Fascist Italy by way of persuasion and creative solutions, but was not able to change the policy itself. The union’s activity has two characteristic levels. On the first level of formal, strategic public strategy, the union displayed weak ability. However, on the second level, the tactical, covert interpersonal level, the union was more effective. It was clear from the outset that the union could not change decisions made by the government in Rome, but it was their hope that, even if they could not have the decisions and decrees changed formally, at least they could act so that their implementation would not be fulfilled to the letter. Additionally, the union was able to take advantage of situations that could lead to a change of policy, as occurred in both cases regarding the Jews of Libya, when there was tension between the policy enacted in Libya and that dictated by Rome, regarding the continued implementation of the decrees to open schools and stores in New Tripoli on Saturdays.

VITERBO’S ACTIVITIES ON BEHALF OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN ETHIOPIA The relationship between the Jews of Italy and Ethiopia began with the occupation of Eritrea by the Italian army at the end of the nineteenth century.63 In the early twentieth century, Dr. Jacob Faitlovitz endeavored to promote educational projects among the Ethiopian Jews. He introduced his students from Ethiopia to the Teachers Institute in Florence in order to train them for key staff positions at schools he planned to establish in Eritrea and Ethiopia during this period. In the 1920s, he worked to establish a school in the Italian colony in Eritrea. For this, he sought the help of Italy’s Chief Rabbi Saccardetti.64 63 Christopher Duggan, A Concise History of Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 169–70; Francesco Del Canto, “Come Si Giunse Alla Missione In Etiopia Presso I Falascia,” Israel, Un decennio, 1974–1984 (1985): 25–26. 64 Yitzhak Grienfeld, “Taamrat Emanuel: Forerunner of the Revival of Ethiopian Jewry” [in Hebrew], Peamim 22 (1985): 64–65; Emanuela Trevisan Semi, “The Educational Activity of Jacques Faitlovich in Ethiopia (1904–1924)” [in Hebrew], Peamim, 58 (1994): 94–96; Taamrat Emanuel, “The School for Falasha Children in Ethiopia at the Time of the Italian Invasion (1935),” Peamim 58 (1994): 98–103; Emanuela Trevisan Semi, “Ethiopian Jews in Europe: Taamrat Emmanuel in Italy and Makonnen Levi in England,” in Jews of Ethiopia: The Birth of an Elite, ed. Tudor Parfit and Emanuela Trevisan Semi (London–New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2005), 80–82; Emanuela Trevisan Semi, Jacques Faitlovitch and the Jews of Ethiopia (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007), 71–108.

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Dr. Faitlovitz also established schools in Addis Ababa, Wolleka, and Dambiya, which were run by his Ethiopian-born students, Taamrat Emmanuel and Jeremiah Gete, who were educated and trained in Florence by Rabbi Margulies and Rabbi Hayut.65 Italy had ambitions to spread geographically and constitute a force of influence on the global political system. The Italian military marked this area of​​ East Africa as a target for occupation. And indeed, in 1935, the Italian army invaded and conquered Ethiopia, thus turning Italy into a significant power in this part of the world. Rome perceived Ethiopia as part of Italian territory and worked to deepen its hold by establishing an Italian administration and by encouraging local officials, such as the Jews in this country, to support the Fascist regime. Furthermore, Mussolini saw in Ethiopia a means by which to solve the Jewish problem, by establishing there the Jewish state.66 This idea, according to Michaelis and Minerbi, figured in Mussolini’s assessment of the Italian interest within the international system.67 In Mussolini’s opinion, this move would strengthen Italy’s position in this region, and within the international arena as a whole. With the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in 1936, Mussolini announced his desire to send Jewish teachers from Italy to serve as teachers for the Ethiopian Jews, and thus to bring them closer to European culture.68 Indeed, the Fascist regime gave political, financial, and organizational assistance to the Jewish school in Addis Ababa under the direction of Taamrat Emanuel. However, this was felt not to be sufficient. A meeting was held at the Colonial Office with the participation of the heads of the union, President Ravenna, Attorney Carlo Alberto Viterbo, and Rabbi Lattes, in which they discussed the problems of the Ethiopian Jews, and agreed that work must be done to improve the poor 65 Simon D. Messing, The Story of the Falashas “Black Jews” of Africa (New York: Balshon Printing & Offset Co., 1982), 63–68. Del Canto, “Come Si Giunse Alla Missione,” 26–31; Carlo Alberto Viterbo, “Relazione Al Ministero Dell’Africa Italiana Dell’Opera Svolta in A.O.I In Rapresentanza Dell’Unione Delle Comunita Israelitche Italiane,” Israel, Un decennio, 1974– 1984, 48. 66 Emanuela Trevisan Semi, “Fascist Colonialism and Ethiopian Jewry,” Peamim 28 (1986): 30–32; Emanuela Trevisan Semi, “The Dainelli and Viterbo Missions among the Falashas (1936–1937),” in Between Africa and Zion, ed. Steven Kaplan, Tudor Parfitt, and Emanuela Trevisan Semi ( Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1995), 72–73. Sergio I. Minerbi, “Il progetto di un insediamento ebraico in Etiopia (1936–1943),” Storia Contemporanea 17, no. 6 (December 1986): 1083–1135. 67 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 101. 68 Yitzhak Grinfeld, “The Hebrew School in Addis Ababa at the Beginning of the Italian Occupation (1936–1937),” Dor le-dor 5 (1992): 63.

Jewish Solidarity

spiritual and material situation that had been their share for centuries.69 Following this meeting, Ravenna dispatched a communication to the Italian colonial secretary on behalf of the union, in which he requested sending a special envoy to Ethiopia, in order to facilitate the organization of these Jews in the social frameworks acceptable in Italy. The role of this emissary would be to assess the situation and the needs of the Ethiopian Jews, as well as to improve the Jewish educational system in Ethiopia.70 The union duly appointed Attorney Carlo Viterbo for this mission. He left for Ethiopia in July 1936 with a commission of the Italian colonial secretary.71 By examining the mission statement set by the union, it is clear that there was a big gap between the reality of the Jews of Ethiopia and the understanding of that reality by Italy’s Jews. The Jews of Italy hoped to be respectful of the local culture of the Ethiopian Jews, while endeavoring to introduce them to the enlightened and progressive Italian culture. On arrival in Ethiopia for his study tour, Viterbo met with high-ranking Italian leaders including the governor and viceroy, who expressed their appreciation and support for programs to improve the status of the Jews. Such programs were the concentration of the spread-out Falasha villages in a single area and district, and the establishment of additional schools, such as in Gondar.72 Viterbo himself provided financial assistance throughout his journey with funds sent by the union for the schools. Indeed, when he first arrived, he gave an initial sum of one thousand pounds and so continued until the end of his mission in Ethiopia.73 At the end of his visit, he presented the union with his report, in which he proposed that the union’s institutions head the movement for the Jews of Ethiopia and be committed to activities on their behalf.74 As emissary of the union and the Italian government, Viterbo proposed his own educational program in his 69 Michael Corinaldi, Ethiopian Jewry: Identity and Tradition [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 2005), 172; Grinfeld, “The Hebrew School,” 68. 70 Trevisan Semi, “Fascist Colonialism and Ethiopian Jewry,” 32; Del Canto, “Come Si Giunse Alla Missione,” 38–39. See also Appendices 1 and 2 in Viterbo, “Relazione Al Ministero Dell’Africa Italiana,” 98–99. 71 Grinfeld, “The Hebrew School,” 68–69; Daniel P. Summerfield, From Falashas to Ethiopian Jews (London–New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003), 94–95. See letter of Appointment given by Union President to Viterbo, in Viterbo, “Relazione Al Ministero Dell’Africa Italiana,” 100, Appendix 3. 72 Grinfeld, “The Hebrew School,” 70–71. 73 Viterbo, “Relazione Al Ministero Dell’Africa Italiana,” 50; Grinfeld, “The Hebrew School,” 67. 74 Op. cit., 69.

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reports, which he thought would serve the interests of the Ethiopian Jews and the government in Rome. He demanded the creation of an educational program for the acquisition of relevant trades in manual labor. He claimed that while he had no objection to the Jews of Ethiopia studying the humanities, such as Bible, religious law, history, and literature, this would not constitute the right or appropriate assistance needed by this community as a whole. According to Viterbo, not all Ethiopian Jews would become Italians and Europeans, and thus they should be trained for manual labor—as shepherds, blacksmiths, locksmiths and agricultural laborers—thereby helping themselves out of the cycle of physical and spiritual poverty, both personally and as a collective.75 Moreover, he insisted that a school be established in Gondar and not in Addis Ababa, since most of the students arrived at the school in Addis Ababa from Gondar after walking dozens of kilometers on foot, and living in dormitory conditions away from their families.76 However, these plans did not materialize, as Mussolini changed his policy toward the Jews in 1937 and adopted the racial doctrines of his ally, Hitler. Viterbo’s mission to Ethiopia was made possible because it served Italian interests concerning Ethiopia and the Jews of this region. The governor and the civil and military bureaucracy regarded this community as a positive factor in Mussolini’s expansion policy with regard to the issue of the settlement of Italians and Jews in the areas under Italian occupation. The Fascist government’s support for this mission largely enabled the union to express its Jewish solidarity toward the Jews of Ethiopia, and to act on improving their status and social and economic standing. However, when the interest of the Jewish community in Ethiopia was not in accord with the policy of the Fascist regime, the union’s activities were suspended. In this case, the expression of national solidarity by the Italian Jews with the Jews of Ethiopia was declaratory rather than practical.

CONCLUSION Solidarity in its mechanical sense is relevant to understanding the nature of the connections and processes reflected in the relationship between the Italian Jewish communities and those in Libya and Ethiopia. Examination of these 75 Trevisan Semi, “Fascist Colonialism and Ethiopian Jewry,” 96. 76 See the document sent from Attorney Viterbo to Felice Ravenna of November 10, 1936, and the report sent to the Colonial Office in Rome of November 24, 1936, Jewish Diaspora Archives, Jerusalem, IT/Lib-C4; Carlo Alberto Viterbo, A Program for the Falashas (Roma: Visigalli and Pasettti, 1967). For Viterbo’s attitude to the establishment of schools in Gondar, and relevant Appendices 11 and 19, see Viterbo, op. cit., 87–92; 112–113.

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relationships, which are based on the fundamental elements of values, beliefs, morals, and common culture, helps in understanding the national dimension in the relationship between the Jewish communities in the Diaspora. Existence of the sense of unity, based on these elements of identity, is expressed among the communities comprising the Jewish Diaspora, which had an impact on the functioning of the union. In its activities to prevent the Sabbath desecration in Libya, the union was successful in bringing about a change in policy. This was because, in this case, the goals of the Jewish community were congruent with the policy objectives set in Rome, in contrast to the decrees of the governors, Badoglio—concerning the opening of schools, and Balbo—concerning the opening of shops. The endeavors made by the union among the government representatives in Rome had an impact that led to policy change, which emanated from the understanding by the regime that it would not be wise to exacerbate the problem of the Jews without a clear political advantage. Viterbo’s mission in Ethiopia was effective up to the point where the government changed its policy on racial doctrine. Viterbo set out on his mission with the blessing of the regime. When he arrived in Ethiopia, he received assistance from the regime. He conducted a survey on the status of Jews in Ethiopia and introduced a program through the union that was intended to be implemented by the Italian colonial office. The program was not implemented, however, due to the strengthening of ties between Mussolini and Hitler in 1937.77 The issue of Jewish solidarity discussed in this article concerns the approach of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities in Italy toward the Jews of Libya and Ethiopia under the Fascist regime in the 1930s. The union took upon itself the role of spokesperson for both these communities, acting in their name and on their behalf before the government in Rome. From a formal, declarative point of view, the union’s ability to operate under a totalitarian nondemocratic regime was quite poor. However, its ability to act on the Jews’ behalf through covert, discreet channels based on interpersonal communication did lead to positive results for the Jews. Moreover, when the union’s activity was part of the general Italian interest, the organization’s ability to act for the Jews in Libya and Ethiopia was much more effective.78 77 Grinfeld, “The Hebrew School,” 74; Trevisan Semi, “The Dainelli and Viterbo Missions,” 78. For an extensive and well-informed explanation about the factors leading to the significant change in Italian policy in this area, see Minerbi, “Il progetto di un insediamento ebraico,” 1125–36. 78 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, 145–236; Smith, Mussolini, 267–84.

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The Dispute between Italy and France in Tunisia: The Role of Language and the Position of Italian Jewry FILIPPO PETRUCCI

F

or a long time, Tunisia was the subject of a dispute between Italy and France, two Mediterranean countries that tried to prevail one over the other. Even when Tunisia became a French Protectorate, the Italian presence was dominant, and Italians played a constant and active economic role in the country. In the context of a dispute that lasted for decades, it is interesting to dwell on the role played by the diffusion of the two main European languages, and the way they were used in both cultures, as well as in the implementation of different policies. In this brief article, I will try to highlight certain aspects of these events, as well as the manner in which the Italian Jewish community (the Grana)1 was involved in them. 1 The Italian Jewish community that settled in Tunis came from Livorno (their origins were in the Iberian Peninsula, from which they had been expelled two centuries earlier) from the beginning of the eighteenth century. They were actually first called Portuguese, then Livornese and Italian and, finally, in a local dialect, were given the name “Grana.” Their history is rich and interesting, and the following works can be consulted on the matter: Elia Boccara, “La comunità ebraica portoghese di Tunisi (1710–1944),” La rassegna mensile di Israel 66, no. 2, published by the Unione delle comunità ebraiche italiane (Roma, maggio-agosto 2000); Patrizia Audenino, “Rotta verso sud: dall’Italia al Mediterraneo,” in Saggi storici. In onore di Roman H. Rainero, ed. Maurizio Antonioli, Angelo Moioli, Milano, Franco Angeli (2005), 239–67; Jean-Pierre Filippini, “La nazione ebrea di Livorno,” in Storia d’Italia, Annali, XI, Gli ebrei in Italia, vol. II, ed. Corrado Vivianti (Torino: Einaudi, 1997); Lionel Levy, La communauté juive de Livourne (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1996); Patrizia Manduchi, “La presenza italiana in Tunisia ed il suo ruolo nello sviluppo della stampa,” in Africana, Rivista di Studi Extraeuropei (Pisa: Edistudio, 2000); Filippo Petrucci, “Una comunità nella comunità: gli ebrei italiani

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It is important also to show the power and influence of the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU),2 which combined aid to the poorer Jewish communities with the diffusion of the French language, and of the Società Dante Alighieri,3 which focused on the dissemination of Italian culture. The role played by the AIU in spreading literacy in Tunisia was important, but literacy in the French language, while enabling social and economic development, also contributed to the strengthening of French influence in the country. Thus, this article will attempt to focus on the contrast between literacy in French and Italian interests in order also to show the feeble attempts made in Tunisia (before and after the proclamation of the French Protectorate) by Italian associations and authorities to disseminate and defend the Italian language.

BEFORE THE PROTECTORATE During the 1860s, Tunisia was in great debt; European countries had different and important interests there:4 there were already many Italian workers in the a Tunisi,” in Altreitalie, Rivista internazionale di studi sulle popolazioni di origine italiana nel mondo 36–37 (luglio 2008); Filippo Petrucci, “L’action politique italienne à l’égard des Juifs italiens de Tunisie pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale,” in Revue d’Histoire Maghrébine 149 (mars 2013); Filippo Petrucci, “Italian Occupation in Tunisia and Yugoslavia: Differences and Similarities in the Relations with Jews,” in The Maghreb Review 40 (no. 1, 2015); Filippo Petrucci, “Dalla Tunisia verso l'Europa: alcuni percorsi di emigrazione della comunità ebraica italiana dopo il 1945,” in Ricerche Storiche XLVII (no. 1, 2017). 2 http://www.aiu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=featured&Itemid=123. The AIU was created in Paris in 1860 in order to bring literacy, education, and job opportunities to the underprivileged members of Jewish communities from Morocco to Turkey and Iran. This is a description of their mission, taken from their own site: “… If you are convinced that a great number of your fellow believers, still overwhelmed by twenty centuries of misery, insults and persecution, can find their dignity as men again and conquer their dignity as citizens; if you believe that it is necessary to bring morals and not damnation to the corrupted; bring light and not neglect to the blind; raise those that are down and not just pity them; defend those that are insulted and not remain silent … Jewish people of the whole world, come, listen to our voice, give us your support, your assistance.” The AIU’s first school opened in Tetuan, Morocco, in 1862. 3 http://www.ladante.it/?q=it/page/chi-siamo/chi-siamo. A group of intellectuals led by Giosuè Carducci created the Società Dante Alighieri in 1889. As is clearly stated in the first article of its Charter, its goal was “to defend and spread Italian language and culture in the world, and everywhere hold high the feeling of Italianness, rekindling the spiritual bonds of our countrymen abroad with their motherland and nourishing in foreigners the love and the admiration for Italian civilization.” From the outset, the actions of the society were aimed both at Italy and at foreign countries. 4 Jean Ganiage, “La Crise des finances tunisiennes et l’ascension des Juifs de Tunis (1860– 1880),” Revue Africaine 99, nos. 1–2 (Alger, 1955): 163.

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country, but both England and especially France wished to increase their influence in the region. In this period there were between ten and twenty thousand Italians living in Tunisia (numbers depend on different statistics and the countries behind them),5 but Italian economic predominance was not supported politically or diplomatically. By contrast, England was active in Tunisia, was closer to the interests of the Ottoman Empire, and was willing to defend its own Maltese community. Even more active was the French presence, which wished to take control of the Tunisian territory.6 France also owned the bonds of the Tunisian foreign debt, granted by the French market to the Bey in 1863 and 1865. The solution to this stalemate was the creation of an International Commission, comprising Tunisians, Italians, French, and English, aimed at consolidating the debt in such a way as to protect everyone’s interests. Giacomo Castelnuovo, a Jewish Italian who was very active in the defense of his country’s interests, played an important role in this solution.7 There were constant episodes of tension between France and Italy regarding Tunisia; one of these had to do with the acquisition of the railway between Tunis and La Goulette, built by an English company and put up for sale in 1880. Even though it had been awarded to a French company, after Italy intervened in London the Italian Rubattino company managed to get the deal, although it was forced to offer the “exorbitant price” [sic] of 4,125,000 francs instead of the 2,500,000 francs offered by the French company Bona-Guelma.8 5 According to the data furnished by André Chouraqui, in 1881, the year in which the Treaty of Bardo was agreed upon, there were in Tunisia 11,206 Italians, 7,000 Maltese, and only 708 French. The number of French people would exceed that of Italians only in 1936, with 108,068 French and 94,289 Italians (actually, in 1931 the French were already the majority, but only by a few hundred); André Chouraqui, Histoire des Juifs en Afrique du Nord (Paris: Hachette, 1972), 538. According to Lorenzo Del Piano, the total number of Italians in 1870 was between seven and nine thousand (plus another two thousand who were not residents, but sailors and itinerant fishermen who did not settle permanently in Tunisia); La penetrazione italiana in Tunisia (1861–1881) (Padova: Cedam, 1964), 80. According to Roman Rainero, at the end of the nineteenth century, there were 23,645 Italians. 6 Del Piano, La penetrazione italiana, 25. 7 Baron Giacomo Castelnuovo was born in Livorno in 1819 and died in La Goulette, in Tunisia, in 1886. He had been a follower of Mazzini in his youth and later accepted the unity of Italy under a monarchy, reaching the Parliament with a right-wing party. He was the doctor of Muhammed Bey, his successor Muhammad al-Sadiq Bey, and later of the Italian King Vittorio Emanuele II. He completed his medical studies, wrote some publications, and served several different diplomatic missions. It is interesting to note that he is still described very positively by Italian scholars, whereas he is either criticized or not particularly appreciated by the French. 8 Saverio Cilibrizzi, Storia Parlamentare Politica e Diplomatica d’Italia, Da Novara a Vittorio Veneto, 1870–1896, vol. II (Milano–Roma–Napoli: Società Editrice Dante Alighieri, 1925), 206.

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France, worried by what it considered to be meddling by the Italian government, blocked the implementation of an underwater telegraphic wire between Tunisia and Sicily, a concession granted by the Bey of Tunis but obstructed by the French, who had the monopoly on telegraphic communications. French maintenance of the debt began Tunisia’s drift toward the orbit of the French state; almost all the debt was accumulated on the French market and France quickly profited from it. France quickly took the opportunity offered by the violation of the Algerian border by Tunisian troops in order to launch an invasion that began in March 1881 and ended with the Treaty of Bardo, imposed on the Bey on May 12, 1881. After that, Tunis became a French Protectorate, a situation later completed with the Convention of al-Marsa in June 1883, which left the Bey of Tunis in position but with merely an excuse of moral authority, stripped of most of his powers. The Italian political defeat was total, and even the French economist Paul Leroy-Beaulieu said: “… Tunisia was an Italian colony managed by French officers.”9 During the 1860s, the Italian colony had a secondary school in Tunis, built on a plot of land given by the Bey and paid for with donations and loans without interest, offered by the colony itself. The school received a government subsidy of five thousand lire a year for its expenses; only rich students had to pay for tuition, whereas poor students were admitted free of charge. The school had 150 students, 90 of whom were Italian, the remainder being of Tunisian or other origin. Seven teachers gave lessons in the primary and the technical school. In 1870, a girl’s school was added to the boy’s school, with two teachers and 60 students (and a subsidy of three thousand lire). The role of these schools was very important, because they preserved and disseminated the use of the Italian language, and also reinforced European leadership in Tunisia.10 The French also had two schools, one for boys, run by the Brothers of Christian Doctrine, and one for girls, with the Sisters of Saint Joseph. The Italian colony had different desires because they lacked a nursery, schools in other parts of Tunisia, a hospital, and even a prison for Italians only, all of which were impeded by lack of funds. The first modern school in Tunis in fact had been opened before, in 1830,11 by a Carbonaro, a man belonging to the Carboneria, a secret movement fighting

9 Ibid., 213. 10 Del Piano, La penetrazione italiana, 81. 11 Boccara, “La comunità ebraica,” 45.

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for the unification of Italy. This man, who had been exiled in Tunis since 1820, was Pompeo Sulema. Together with his sister Esther and Giuseppe Morpurgo (all Italian and all Jewish), he had decided to open the first Italian school in 1831.12 The previous year, another Italian Jew forced to leave Italy, Giulio Finzi, had opened the first printing works in Tunis. Yet another Italian Jew, that same Giacomo Castelnuovo mentioned earlier, was among the main promoters of the opening of the first school of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. I believe we should dwell for a moment on this piece of information, because it is here that we find the source of the geopolitical problems linked to the cultural and linguistic Italo–French dispute. The aim of Castelnuovo, who was president of the first regional committee of the AIU in Tunisia until 1878, was to open up new possibilities for the poor Jewish masses in the Tunisian community. However, other problems existed when opening that sort of school: the Bey, the local administration, and, especially, the existing disputes among different Jewish groups and European powers. In the words of Hagège: The choice of the language for education divided Jewish people as well: on the one hand, there were the French Jews and most of the indigenous Jews, members of the regional committee, backed by the central committee of the Alliance, who wanted to create a French school; on the other, most of the Grana, who supported Italian. It was difficult to reach a compromise: French and Italian would be used jointly, and Arabic and Hebrew would be taught as complementary languages. But Italian was discarded from 1881 and, in 1882, Narcisse Leven13 was able to present the school of the Alliance as a French institution.14

The agreement was that both French and Italian were to be taught in the school. However, with the proclamation of the Protectorate in 1881, just three years after the opening of the first school of the Alliance and coinciding with the reelection of all the social positions of the AIU, all the Italians were expelled 12 Another school was opened previously, in 1821, by two exiles from Napoli, I. La Rotonda and L.Visconti, but there was no regular pattern like the one opened in 1831. See Nicola Marchitto, L’Italia in Tunisia (Roma: Edizioni Latium, 1942), 17. 13 Narcisse Leven was one of the founders of the AIU. At that time, he was secretary of the AIU in Paris and later became its vice president and president. 14 Claude Hagège, “Communautés juives de Tunisie à la veille du Protectorat français,” in Le Mouvement Social, 110 ( January-March 1980) (Ivry-Sur-Seine: Editions l’Atelier): 48.

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and the Italian language was excluded. The AIU became a means for France to propagate its influence, betraying the hopes of its local founder. Quoting again from the words of Hagège, “… by offering a French education, the Alliance contributed to the attachment of Tunisian Jews to the cause of France.”15 Since language did not just mean a foreign language, inasmuch as “… its teaching implied the fundamental learning of reading and writing, that is, the transmission of a whole value system as well as new ideas of emancipation,”16 it did not matter that the school had opened thanks to the work developed by Castelnuovo.17 Another example that is usually forgotten deals with the creation in 1893 of the Jewish Hospital. Of the ten doctors working there, only one was French, while the other nine were all Italian physicians who had studied at the universities of Rome, Florence, and Turin: G. Bensasson, M. Cardoso, E. Cassuto, G. Funaro, G. Levi, E. Molco, L. Morpurgo, C. Ortona, and L. Santillana. The only Frenchman was A. Cattan. The dispute regarding the school was a clear sign of tension, as well as of a perfectly defined French colonial project: the first goal of France in Tunisia was to oust the Italian presence from the country. With the power of its numbers and economy, its relevant cultural status, and the fundamental influence of its language (the language most spoken after Arabic until the 1920s), Italy was France’s main rival. So here, inside the Jewish world, we have one of the many expressions of the dispute concerning the “Italian danger.” While it cannot be denied that France represented a primary example of an emancipating country for the Jews, and thus there was a natural affinity to it, it is equally obvious to me that the barely concealed goal was to reinforce the French presence using the Tunisian Jewish community. This becomes evident if we read the information regarding the various AIU schools in the Mediterranean countries offered by Michael Laskier: In Tangier and Mogador, in addition to French and Hebrew, English was taught because these communities had strong commercial links with 15 Ibid. 16 Claude Hagège and Bernard Zarca, “Les Juifs et la France en Tunisie. Les bénéfices d’une relation triangulaire,” in Le Mouvement social, 197 (Ivry-Sur-Seine: Editions l’Atelier, October–December 2001), 21. 17 Paul Sebag, Histoire des Juifs de Tunisie (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1991), 177n106. Curiously enough, we have to add that, in the Livre d’Or de Tunis (published by Albert Arrouas in 1932 and including a summary of the most important Tunisians in the previous fifty years), Castelnuovo is nowhere to be found among the numerous Italians and Jews.

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Therefore, we can see how, in different countries around the world, the AIU continued to teach different languages. It was only in Tunisia that they blocked the Italian language, which they saw as being in direct competition with that of the ruler: France.

AFTER THE BIRTH OF THE PROTECTORATE: THE 1920S From 1881 on, in its role as the protecting power, France exerted all its energies in hindering the Italians. As early as 1888, the Bey put all schools under the control of the French Inspectorate and, with two laws declared by the Tunisian government but clearly of French origin, banned non-authorized associations. Crispi, the Italian prime minister of the time, protested against the French initiative. With the other European chancelleries, he reminded the French that, by virtue of previous treaties (the treaty of friendship from 1868, as well as other treaties agreed to by the Bey with the different Italian states before their unification), these acts were not applicable to Italians, as Tunisia was a country subject to capitulation. In this case, Italy managed successfully to defend its prerogatives.19 18 Michael M. Laskier, “Aspects of the Activities of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in the Jewish Communities of the Middle East and North Africa: 1860–1918,” Modern Judaism 3, no. 2 (May 1983): 160. 19 Cilibrizzi, Storia Parlamentare II, 357. But neither Italy nor any other European country could do anything when France decided to turn Biserta into a military stronghold (so important for France that even after Tunisia’s independence it was retained under French control until 1963).

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In 1896, in view of the adversity of Italy’s international political situation, it was deemed preferable to implicitly acknowledge the French Protectorate and sign three conventions between France and Italy for a nine-year period (on matters of commerce, navigation, consulates, settlement, and extradition), in order for the former to protect Italian interests in Tunisia. Overall, then, the 1896 agreements offered Italy good work guarantees in Tunisia, as well as the possibility of maintaining Italian citizenship for Tunisian residents and their offspring. However, in September 1918 France opposed the agreements, which, from that time on, were renewed once every three months, thus exposing Italians to the constant risk of losing their citizenship and the benefits deriving from the conventions.20 In order to hamper Italian immigration, primary schools were limited, certifications issued by middle schools were not acknowledged, public meetings were banned, and Italians were excluded from credits for agriculture and contracts for public works. Both countries had softened their positions with the Mediterranean agreements of 1900 and 1902, in which Italy had acknowledged the French influence over Morocco, and France the Italian influence over Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, but Tunisia remained an open front. During the 1920s, the Italian problem, while seemingly on the way to a solution, was not solved yet: Italians were still the second largest population group in the country after the Arabs, and the Italian language was still the second most spoken language after Arabic. In 1924, there was a total number of 9,007 students in Italian schools (and around 170 teachers), but an additional 9,700 Italian children attended French schools.21 The number of public and private French schools in Tunisia was 427 at the end of the 1920s, not including secondary schools, with a total number of 62,898 students; the number of Italian schools (both government and the 20 Saverio Cilibrizzi, Storia Parlamentare Politica e Diplomatica d’Italia, Da Novara a Vittorio Veneto, 1896–1909, vol. III (Milano–Genova–Roma–Napoli: Società Editrice Dante Alighieri, 1929), 38. The conventions would be reviewed later in the 1935 agreements between Mussolini and Laval, in which it was stated that Italian nationality could be maintained for the children of Italians born in Tunisia before 1945. Those born between 1945 and 1965 could choose French or Italian citizenship, but there would have been only the option of French citizenship for those born after 1965. War would later cancel all these agreements. For further information, see also Enrico De Leone, La colonizzazione dell’Africa del Nord, Tomo Primo (Padova, Cedam, 1957), 344–50. For more information about the professional institutes, the high schools, and other data about school in the 1930s, see the same book, 399–400. 21 Francesco Bonura, Gli italiani in Tunisia ed il problema della naturalizzazione (Roma: Edizioni Tiber, 1929), 30.

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Dante Alighieri) was less than 20, with around 8,000 students, including small children attending nursery schools. French schools also had files for 10,964 young Italians.22 The French superiority was crushing. The Dante Alighieri, created in Tunis in 1892,23 had committees in Tunis, Monastir, Sousse, and Sfax, and they worked to support the teaching of Italian, the Italian press, the creation of libraries, the reception of lecturers, and the organization of different cultural events. However, the difference between this and the French logistic machinery was huge. The committee in Tunis had two hundred members, including the consul and prominent members of society. It aimed at reinforcing the cultural front against the overwhelming French presence, stopping the trend of naturalization, using auxiliary facilities (because the number of schools was restricted) as libraries,24 organizing workshops and conferences, as well as offering financial support to the already existing schools. With certain stratagems, it was possible nevertheless to open new schools, as Daniel Grange reminds us: From 1905 on, after a trip of the future Minister for Foreign Affairs Antonio Di San Giuliano, at the time a delegate of the Dante Alighieri, who was faced with the flow of Sicilian immigration that seemed easy prey for Tunisian naturalization on account of its poverty, created a special aid program to help the small peasants of Cap Bon and Enfida with a Credit Cooperative, in order to free them from usury. Moreover, the creation of new schools was imposed in the centers of Sicilian immigration, but came up against the veto of the French administration and the Ligue de l’Enseignement. These schools were disguised thus as centers for music lessons, and clandestine schools were created. Only in 1912 did it become possible to open six Italian schools in the centers of colonization (Bizerte, Mahdia, Le Kef, Cap Bon).25

Finally, the decree of January 24, 1920, adopted after the abrogation of a previous decree of February 20, 1910 regarding schools and the sale of real estate, 22 Ibid., 116. 23 Nicola Marchitto, L’Italia in Tunisia, 176. 24 For instance, the Vittorio Emanuele library, which contained around 10,000 volumes before being dismantled by the French in 1947–48. 25 See Daniel J. Grange, “La Société Dante Alighieri et la défense de l’italianità,” in Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Italie et mediterranée 117, no. 1 (Roma: École Française de Rome, 2005).

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authorized the opening of private schools among all elements of the Tunisian population, subject only to certain formalities being fulfilled at the office of the resident-general. In spite of this decree, and because of the supremacy of French education, there was less possibility of opening Italian schools than in the past. Francesco Bonura wrote26 that, in 1926, the Dante Alighieri wanted to open two small Italian schools, one in Mateur and one in Ferryville, both of which were agricultural centers inhabited mainly by people of Italian origin. The Protectorate opposed the project, however, in spite of the availability offered by the Dante Alighieri concerning school programs and even facilities, because there were already French schools in the areas, and did not grant authorization. Bonura wonders why was it so difficult for the Italians to open schools “… when the Archbishop of Carthage gave his permission to Jewish people to open their own schools without being forced to attend French nonreligious schools.” The situation sometimes led to demonstrations on the streets: one such protest did not abate until the Protectorate government granted the use of school facilities in Bu Fiscia, Reyville, Kelibia, Grombalia, and Mateur for four hours a week, for the teaching of the Italian language and culture by Italian teachers.27 It also should be noted that the anti-Italian stance was a trait shared by both left- and right-wing politicians, to the point of absurdity. Morinaud, the deputy mayor of Constantine, a traditional antisemite (who pretended to distance himself temporarily from antisemitism), was among those who fought more strongly in favor of the politics of naturalization. During his speech on November 30, 1927, in the French Chamber, he stated that “… out of those 50,000 Tunisian Jews, 30,000 are worthy, for their culture and social position, to enter the great French family.”28 A renowned antisemite, he proposed the French naturalization of 30,000 Jews only in order to better repel possible Italian influence. Thus, in Tunisia we find this multifarious relationship: a colonizing France, the AIU enhancing Jewish culture and, at the same time, opening ever wider the gates to French domination, Italian Jews, being an “elite,” doing their best both for Jews in general and for the Italian community, and, finally, the mass of Italians living in Tunisia. Something that stands out quite clearly is the clear 26 Bonura, Gli italiani in Tunisia ed il problema della naturalizzazione, 67. 27 The local population, agitated by political pressure exerted by the Italian side, initially was unwilling to accept just four hours of Italian a week. 28 Bonura, Gli italiani in Tunisia ed il problema della naturalizzazione, 141.

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connection between the idea of France as a civilizing country and the AIU. To quote Mathew Burrows: All of the members in the AIU believed in French culture almost as a mark of their adherence to the principles of 1789. France had been the first country to give Jews their political rights. Her language and thought were particularly suited then to bring about the emancipation of other Jews. As Leven wrote: “… la langue française, destinée à propager au loin le génie du pays qui a le plus fait pour la liberté de conscience, et dont les tendances les plus sainement libérales se personnifient dans l’Alliance israélite, sera préférée dans les écoles et les maitres choisis devront ordinairement parler cette langue.”29

And, yet again, regarding the active role of the Alliance: Jewish assimilation of French culture was enhanced by the Alliance Israelite Universelle … Through its extensive network of primary and secondary schools, the AIU spread the French language and culture far more broadly than did elite and settler-oriented French schools. In a few instances, as in Djerba in southern Tunisia, traditionalist elements successfully resisted the incursions of the AIU. In general, however, Jews welcomed the AIU and viewed it as an agent of progress. Together, the AIU and the colonial mission narrowed the cleavage between indigenous Jews and those of European origin and taught many Jews to accept France as their spiritual home. Thus, they greatly increased the cultural distance between Jews and Arabs. They also produced among many Arabs a view of the Jew as collaborator. Jews were seen as profiting by, and indeed becoming a part of, a political force that most Arabs considered oppressive and humiliating.30

We have seen how France, along with the AIU, worked in favor of the development of French language and culture in Tunisia, all the while blocking the way for any Italian endeavors in the same direction. 29 Mathew Burrows, “Mission civilisatrice: French Cultural Policy in the Middle East, 1860– 1914,” The Historical Journal 29, no. 1 (March 1986): 122. 30 Mark A. Tessler and Linda L. Hawkins, “The Political Culture of Jews in Tunisia and Morocco,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 11, no. 1 (February 1980): 60.

The Dispute between Italy and France in Tunisi

But what was the Italian policy regarding the matter? In fact, the Italian educational and cultural policy in Tunisia was extremely weak; despite a hopefilled beginning and good examples, as we have seen with the schools and printing presses, the absence of the Italian state was decisive for the negative outcome in Tunisia. The Italian Jewish community, the Grana, took part in the efforts to transmit the culture of their homeland, but it was not enough. The Italian Jews of Tunisia, a historic community in Africa that had always been at the center of international debate, became from that time and in years to come the stronghold of Italian identity in a territory that would later suffer racial laws (made earlier by Fascism and later by Vichy) and German occupation. They were part of the institutions, they worked in hospitals and schools, and they also were relevant in the art world. The headquarters of the Dante Alighieri in Tunis was the venue for exhibitions of Italian artists (as well as members of the Jewish community) such as Moses Levy, Maurizio Valenzi (who would later enter politics), Nello Levy, and Emanuele Bocchieri, who would later become famous in the international world of art.31 It could be said that there were various reasons for the absence of an Italian policy in Tunisia. The weakness of a country like Italy, whose own unification was still very recent (Rome had capitulated in 1871); the poverty of a large part of the nation and the desire to promote literacy in the local populations of the Italian peninsula in which the low level of education was still a great problem, played a major role in this absence of policy. With all these internal problems, it was difficult to think about trying to develop an education for Italians in Tunisia. On a political level, we also have to take into account the disappointment resulting from the proclamation of the French Protectorate, and the desire to seek its own place in Africa (land acquisitions in Eastern Africa started after 1882), and thus the need to amass capital for other goals. Moreover, an educational policy that weighed mainly on the shoulders of the Dante Alighieri was incapable of having any positive influence on the lack of a clear project. On this matter, Pasquale Villari, chief of the Dante Alighieri during the years 1896–1901, proposed changing the distribution of the resources destined for Italian schools because: 31 Giusi Lo Tennero, “Les immeubles de la Société Dante Alighieri en Tunisie et l’activité de promotion de la culture italienne dans le Maghreb,” in Architectures et architectes italiens au Maghreb: Actes du colloque international tenu aux Archives Nationales de Tunisie, Tunis, December 10–12, 2009 (Florence: Polistampa, 2011).

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Part Four    The Contemporary Perio There simply was not enough money to subsidize schools on every continent, and most of the money went to Italian state-owned schools in Mediterranean cities. Prime Minister Crispi had set up the expensive schools to boost Italy’s imperialist interests in Tunisia, Egypt, Greece and Tripolitania, Albania, and Turkey under Ottoman rule. Italy thus spent hundreds of thousands of lire annually on expensive state schools to teach Arab, Jewish, Greek, Turkish, and Albanian children, while many Italians at home and abroad remained illiterate. Someday, Crispi hoped, Italy would possess or control these territories, and Italy’s investment in the schools’ alumni would repay itself in local support and collaboration. In the meantime, however, aside from Tunisia, there were few Italian expatriate children in these strategic Mediterranean cities.32

The strategy was to finance schools open to all in order to maintain a relationship with the future elite in different Mediterranean countries. In spite of Villari’s proposition to change that policy and concentrate on Italian communities, the final decision was to keep on working with the goal of “exporting a modern civilization to communities still under Ottoman domination.” Overall, this dispersive policy had few positive effects. In the end, the situation in Tunisia was particularly difficult in rural areas, such as in the northwest, and the only solution there was to resort to French schools: The existence of some French schools near mining centers allowed the Italian families settled in the regions of the northwest to ensure a minimum schooling for their children. Obviously, it meant a French education, but, in that context, it remained the only chance of saving their children from illiteracy. In contrast with Italians living in the big cities, who had schools and cultural associations capable of defending their identity and maintaining their ties to the homeland, the families of the miners, especially those dispersed throughout the mines of the northern and the central western areas, and due to the absence of Italian schools (with the exception of the private Dante Alighieri school in Kef), were forced to send their children to French schools.33 32 Mark I. Choate, “The Tunisia Paradox: Italian Aims, French Imperial Rule, and Migration in the Mediterranean Basin,” California Italian Studies Journal 1, no. 1 (2010): 10. 33 Mohamed Fakhreddine Mansouri, Les Sardes en Tuni, fin XIXème et debut XXème Siècle (Mémoire de Mastère en Histoire et civilisation du Monde Méditerranéen, Faculté des Lettres des Arts et des Humanités de La Manouba [Tunis], dirigé par le Professeur Habib Kazdaghli, Année Universitaire 2008–2009), 155.

The Dispute between Italy and France in Tunisi

Therefore, despite his efforts, the Dante Alighieri could not have a decisive influence over the protection of the Italian language and “Italianness” against French policies (no other Italian schools were sufficient either).34 It is of interest that even in a book published during the heyday of Italian Fascism (1933), and entitled La nostra colonia di Tunisi, there is criticism aimed at the Dante Alighieri, which had opened its new headquarters in Tunis in 1926, in a beautiful building that was nevertheless too small for any sort of event.35 It is possible, though, that this criticism stemmed from other reasons: in fact, Pietro Brignone, president of the Dante Alighieri, who oversaw the building and inauguration of these headquarters, was an earnest anti-Fascist and was forced to resign his office just a few years later.36 Furthermore, the 1930s brought an additional problem: the cohesion of the Italian community was compromised yet further after the rise to power of Fascism, and internal tensions were added to the tension created by the authority of the Protectorate (disagreements between Fascists and anti-Fascists, disappointment and sense of betrayal after the racial laws of 1938 in the Grana community).

CONCLUSIONS French, with the AIU as its ally, slowly replaced Italian as the first language in Tunisia. Italy had a clear numerical advantage until the 1930s,37 and the Italian language was the vehicle of communication in the world of business, culture, and everyday life.38 The aggressive French campaign and the lack of organization in the Italian defense thwarted the survival of the Italian language in Tunisia.

34 It is necessary, however, to recognize the fact that the activities of Dante had great importance, and were a defense of Italian culture and language (Fascism also, for obvious reasons, defended the role of Italy). See E. W. Bovill, “Italy in Africa, Part II,” in Journal of the Royal African Society 32, 129 (October 1933). 35 Vito Magliocco, La nostra colonia di Tunisi (Milano: Casa Editrice La Prora, 1933), 138. 36 Lo Tennero, “Les immeubles.” But Marchitto, who was a Fascist and a defender of the regime, does not criticize the school, but rather praises the new building. Nicola Marchitto, L’Italia in Tunisia, 176. 37 The Italians were more numerous than the French (in 1931, the latter took the lead by a few hundred—91,427 vs. 91,178—and in 1936 they were clearly ahead, with 108,068 French and 94,289 Italians). Chouraqui, Histoire, 538. The majority of the Italian population came from Sicily (around 79 percent in 1927) and then from Sardinia (9 percent); André E. Sayous, “Les Italiens en Tunisie,” Revue économique international 2, no. 7 ( July 1927): 74. 38 Alessandro Triulzi, “Italian-Speaking Communities in Early Nineteenth-century Tunis,” Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée 9, no. 1 (Aix-en-Provence, 1971): 150–60.

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The policy of the AIU had typical colonizing traits. In a letter sent by Salomon Reinach regarding the Tunisian Jews at the beginning of the Protectorate, collected by Robert Attal,39 we find the usual criticisms expressed by the colonizer regarding the “colonized poor.” Tunisian Jews professed a crude and superstitious Hebraism, and contempt for these savages was the normal attitude in the French, who carried the torch of civilization. Nevertheless, this policy had a positive effect on the Tunisian Jews in the long run: armed with these languages, they were able to enrich their culture and their capacity to confront the new world in the aftermath of the two world wars. Thus, French became their international passport. The Italian language disappeared from official matters; it continued to be used for many years, but it was put aside, just as the Italian community and, particularly the Livornese, were put aside. In fact, the Italian Jewish community was dissolved shortly after the liberation in 1943, and centuries of autonomous history disappeared in a moment. Traces of the Italian presence remained in the territory, especially in Tunis, where Italian architects had worked extensively from the 1920s, but the defeat in World War II meant that Italy unequivocally had to leave a land that had been home to tens of thousands of Italians.

39 Robert Attal, “Deux rapports de Salomon Reinach sur les juifs de Tunisie au début du Protectorat,” Revue des études juives 138, nos. 1–2 ( January–June 1979): 117–26.

CHAPTER 19

Jews as Promoters of Italian Civilization in Libya RACHEL SIMON

D

espite the political, economic, and cultural marginality of Libya’s Jewish community and Libya itself during the late Ottoman period, Libyan Jewry was in contact with other Jewish communities and had particularly strong contacts with the Jews of Italy. Relationships within the Jewish world were usually based on religious issues, as was in the case with Libya. From the 1870s, the chief rabbis of Libya were appointed by the Ottoman authorities and hailed from the major Jewish centers of the Ottoman Empire, religious emissaries from the Holy Land visited Libya to collect donations for their religious institutions, and Libyan rabbis sent questions to famous rabbis abroad. Traditionally, there were also diverse and strong economic relations with Europe, mainly with Italy and Britain. Moreover, much of the economic enterprise was family based, and was the source for emerging cultural and political contacts with Italy. Contacts also began to develop with the Central Zionist Organization in Europe in the early twentieth century. This paper will examine how initiatives from both sides— Italy and Libya—mainly but not only by Jews, contributed to the spread of Italian civilization in Libya from the late nineteenth century. Toward the end of Ottoman rule in Libya, which resulted from the Italian invasion of September 1911, the Jews of Libya numbered some 20,000, and lived mainly in Tripoli and Benghazi, and other towns on the Mediterranean shore, as well as in the rural Tripolitanian hinterland. About 1,100 of the urban Jews also held Italian citizenship because of their family origins in Italy, mainly in Livorno, or through economic and consular connections. Many of these Jews had extensive commercial contacts with Italy, where a great number had relatives and acquaintances, including business partners. The Italian authorities and Jewry relied on this nucleus in order to expand Italian cultural,

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economic, and political influence in Libya. The Italian authorities appreciated the importance of loyal Italian citizens in Ottoman Libya, and exerted pressure to prevent the Ottoman attempts to strip these Jews of their Italian citizenship in favor of an Ottoman one.1 Although the Italian authorities and the Italian Jewish community were independent of each other, they often collaborated and had many interests and goals in common.

EDUCATION Traditionally, there were strong cultural contacts between Libyan and Italian Jewish religious scholars: some Libyan Jews studied in Italian yeshivot, several rabbis from Italy settled in Libya during the Ottoman period, and a number of Libyan scholars published their works in Livorno before the establishment of a Hebrew printing press in Tripoli in the early twentieth century.2 Secular cultural contacts between Italy and Libya began to develop in the late nineteenth century, mainly due to the initiative of individuals within the Jewish Tripolitan mercantile class who were Italian citizens. The personal and commercial relations of the latter with Italy, and their desire to train manpower qualified to carry on and develop their commercial contacts with Italy, spurred these Jews—mainly in Tripoli—to seek an Italian education for their children in Libya. Jewish boys had been sent to Italy to study occasionally in the past, and some Jewish children studied in Christian schools in Tripoli, but Tripolitan Jewish families generally preferred to stay together and have their children educated in their hometowns, close to their family and within a Jewish environment. As a result, in 1875, several Tripolitan Jews sent a request to their coreligionists in Livorno to send a teacher to Tripoli. This Jewish initiative brought about the establishment, from 1876, of Italian schools in Libya. In that year, Giannetto Paggi (1852–1916), a teacher in the Italian state school system and a graduate of the Collegio Rabbinico of Livorno, moved with his family to Tripoli, where he remained for the rest of his life.3 On arrival, he opened and directed a private Italian school for boys. At first, mainly boys from wealthy Jewish mer 1 Mordekhai ha-Kohen, Higid Mordekhai ( Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1978), 169. 2 ha-Kohen, Higid Mordekhai, 200, 267, 270–71, 349, 386–87; Frigia Zuaretz et al., eds., Yahadut Luv (Tel Aviv: Va’ad Qehilot Luv be-Yisra’el, 1982), 67–68, 72, 408–9; Nahum Slouschz, Sefer ha-Masa’ot: Masa’ai be-Erets Luv (Tel Aviv: n.p., 1938–43), vol. 2, 31–33, 49, 108–9. 3 On the activities of Giannetto Paggi, see Ariel Paggi and Judith Roumani, “From Pitigliano via Livorno: The Pedagogical Odyssey of Giannetto Paggi,” Sephardic Horizons 2/4 (2011): http://sephardichorizons.org/Volume2/Issue4/paggi.html.

Jews as Promoters of Italian Civilization in Libya

cantile families attended this school, because tuition fees were required. A year later, in 1877, a girls’ school was established in Tripoli, directed by a Livornese Jewish woman, Carolina Nunes Vais (1856–1932), who held that position until her death. This was the only secular school for girls in Libya until 1896, when the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) opened its girls’ school in Tripoli. An important development took place in 1882, when the school became an Italian state school run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which housed it in appropriate accommodation and provided it with teaching staff and teaching materials. In 1885, the Italian government decided to further support Italian education in Tripoli by making it tuition free, and even provided textbooks as well as shoes and coats for poor students in the winter. The Italian educational network in Libya gradually expanded, and kindergartens and schools were added in other cities under the general directorship of Paggi, who held that position for forty years. Paggi was also instrumental in spreading Italian culture in Libya through the establishment in Tripoli of the Dante Aleghieri society, over which he presided. In 1904, school graduates celebrated Paggi’s contributions, and the Italian government awarded him an honorary medal and the title Cavaliere d’Italia in recognition of his efforts. In 1916, the city of Tripoli (by then under Italian rule) honored him with a gold medal. On his death in 1916, he was given a state funeral that was attended by the governor of Libya and top civilian and military personnel. In his activities, initiatives, and correspondence with Italian state officials, Paggi emphasized the importance of the Italian schools in Libya as a means of spreading Italian language, culture, and civilization, and providing efficient means for peaceful cultural penetration, thus serving the goals of Italian colonial policy. The Italian educational network spread across Libya and, by the end of the Ottoman period, in 1911, it numbered twelve schools, including three for girls (in Tripoli, Benghazi, and Khoms), a high school in Tripoli (from 1909), and a night school for adults. In Tripoli alone, there were five educational institutions with 835 students, costing the Italian government 45,275 lire, with more than 16,000 lire earmarked for the high school. The number of students in Tripolitania grew from 60 in 1876 to 1,327 in 1910 (with 1,730 in the whole of Libya), most of them Jews, although some Muslims and Christians also attended them. Apart from church-operated schools, these were the only Italian schools in Libya until the Italian occupation. The boys’ school included five elementary grades and four for vocational training. In addition to the Italian language, the curriculum included arithmetic, history, and geography, as well as topics relevant to commercial and technical

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activities. Instead of commercial training, the girls were trained in sewing and embroidery. Moreover, due to the competition with the AIU girls’ school, the Italian girls’ school added some Jewish subjects to its curriculum in the late 1890s, as well as English and French. The quality of the Italian schools was higher than what had been common in Libya at the time with regard to facilities and teaching. The Italian schools were better equipped than the traditional ones and were housed in appropriate facilities. Teaching was also of higher quality. Many teachers were Italian Jews who had professional training, though some indigenous teachers eventually joined the network: the latter were either graduates of the Italian schools or religious scholars providing some religious education (including the appropriate languages) to students of their respective religion. Thus, from 1903, Hebrew was taught at the school in Tripoli by the scholar, journalist, and merchant Mordecai Hacohen (1856–1929), himself an Italian citizen, who revolutionized the teaching of Hebrew in Libya by teaching it as a living language.4 From the mid-1890s, political pressure was added to the social, economic, and cultural attraction of the Italian schools, when the Italian consulate in Tripoli exerted pressure on Italian citizens to send their children only to the Italian schools and not to the AIU ones. Families were warned that their citizenship would be abrogated, economic sanctions would be taken against them, and that students in the Italian schools would be expelled if their siblings attended the AIU schools. On occasion, the Italian authorities even threatened to close their schools altogether. The last threat was obviously against Italian interests in Libya and apparently was not taken seriously by the local population, which knew that Italy was dedicated to maintaining its interests in Libya, even in face of heavy economic burden. Some of the former warnings, however, had their impact, and several children whose siblings attended the Italian schools left the AIU schools.5 4 On Mordecai Hacohen, his background, activities and scholarship, see Harvey E. Goldberg, “The Oriental and the Orientalist: The Meeting of Mordecai Ha-Cohen and Nahum Slouschz,” Jewish Culture and History 7 (2004): 1–30. 5 ha-Kohen, Higid Mordekhai, 35, 166–67, 269, 324, 338–39; The Book of Mordechai: A Study of the Jews of Libya: Selections from the Highid Mordekhai of Mordechai Hakohen, ed. Harvey E. Goldberg (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1980), 9, 153, 169; Zuaretz, Yahadut Luv, 53–54, 129; Rachel Simon, Change within Tradition among Jewish Women in Libya (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992), 111–13; Rachel Simon, “The Relations of the Jewish Community of Libya with Europe in the Late Ottoman Period,” in Les relations intercommunautaires juives en méditerranée occidentale XIIIe–XXe siecles, ed. J. L. Miege (Paris: CNRS, 1984), 71; Rachel Simon, “Language Change and Sociopolitical Transformations:

Jews as Promoters of Italian Civilization in Libya

Even after the Italian occupation of Libya and the establishment there of Italian state education, Jews were a significant part of the student body in the metropolitan educational system, which provided the same curriculum as state schools in Italy.6 With the growth of the number of Italian administrators, military personnel, and settlers in Libya, the percentage of Jews in state schools decreased, but Jews continued to be the majority among the indigenous population who received Italian education. Under Italian rule (1911–42), most Jewish boys in Tripoli who studied in the Italian educational system attended the Pietro Verri School7 for grades 1–5, which was directed by a Jewish woman, The Case of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Libyan Jews,” Jewish History 4, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 104; Simon, Change within Tradition, 111–14; Renzo De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land: Libya, 1835–1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), 11, according to which, on the eve of the Italian occupation, 1,730 students attended the Italian schools, most of them Jews; A. J. Steele-Greig, History of Education in Tripolitania (Tripoli: Government Press, 1948), 13– 14 (the Italian schools in 1911 included a secondary school with 7 teachers and 41 students, a boys primary school with 8 teachers and 160 students, a night school with 139 students, a girls primary school with 7 teachers and 322 students, and a kindergarten with 3 teachers and 173 students); Appendix 2: Italian schools 1876–1910 (p. 53), Appendix 3: Italian school population primary, commercial, and secondary in Tripoli 1911: 546—1921: 2,948 (p. 54), Appendix 4: 1921/22: 10 Italian schools in Tripoli 2,173 students, 322 teachers—1938/39: 93—7,344—612 (p. 55); Salname-yi Nezaret-i Maarif-i Umumiye [in Ottoman Turkish] (Istanbul: Asr Matbaası, H1321, 1903), 196: in 1903 there were four Italian schools in Tripoli (including one for girls and one vocational) and one in Khoms, altogether teaching 404 boys and 241 girls. On Italian schools and Italian pressure on Italian citizens that their children attend Italian schools and not AIU, see David Arie, Tripoli to AIU Paris, October 28, 1895, December 18, 1895—Archives of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, Paris (hereafter AAIU), II E6a; David Arie, Tripoli to AIU Paris, January 1, 1899—AAIU, III E6c; David Arie, Tripoli to AIU Paris, January 8, 1902, January 7, 1903—AAIU, IV E22a. In 1911, the Italians spent 100,000 francs on education in Tripoli, of which 12,500 francs were spent on the girls’ school. The latter had 348 students and the Benghazi school for girls had 160 students: Meir Levi, Tripoli to AIU Paris, September 10, 1911—AAIU, IV E 22c; Gabriele Raccah, Lunario ebraico libico 5698 (Tripoli: Zerd, 1938), 12, 15, 18, 24; Bianca Nunes-Vais, Gli Ebrei di Tripoli ( Jerusalem: Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, MS. P-66), 6–7; regarding complaints in the Ottoman parliament about Italian educational activities in Libya and the government’s inactivity, see Mayor, Constantinople to Rome, January 11, 1911, 209/60, Archivio Storico Diplomatico [ASD], Seri P, pac, 17, January 31, 1911, no. 7423, stating that the Italians have twelve schools, including a secondary one, while the Ottomans have only four; Hayim Khalfon, Lanu ule-Vanenu: Ma’agal Haye ha-Kehilah ha-Lubit (Tel Aviv, 1986), 121; Gabriele V. Raccah, Appunti per un archivio delle famiflie ebraiche della Libia: “Arbib” (Florence?, 1944?), 8; Paggi and Roumani, “From Pitigliano via Livorno.” 6 Another state school system provided education for Muslim students and was geared toward their culture. 7 The first school that Paggi established was renamed Pietro Verri in 1912–13; see Paggi and Roumani, “From Pitigliano via Livorno.”

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Emma Pollaco. It gradually became exclusively for Jews and was located just outside the Jewish quarter. In the morning hours, the teachers were Christians who taught general studies and, in the afternoon, the boys received Jewish education from Jewish teachers. There were, however, also Jews who studied in mixed schools that included Christians and Muslims. Most Jewish girls in Tripoli who received formal education attended the Margherita di Savoia School, whose students were mainly Jewish. In Tripolitania, the number of Jews attending state schools grew from 975 in 1921–22 to 4,101 in 1938–39. Thus, the accelerated spread of the Italian language among Jews resulted from the spread of the Italian state schools and the constant contact with Italian administrators and civilians. The Italian language consequently became the language of culture for a growing number of Libyan Jews, mainly in the urban centers. According to the 1931 census, the knowledge of Italian was higher among Jews in comparison to Arabs. In Tripoli, 43.8 percent of Jewish men and 29.7 percent of Jewish women knew Italian in comparison to 29.2 percent and 2.6 percent respectively among the Arabs, and the percentage in Benghazi was even higher: 67.1 percent and 40.8 percent among the Jews in comparison to 34.5 percent and 1.6 percent among the Arabs.8 Higher education did not exist in Libya at the time, and only few Jews studied abroad. 8 Harvey Goldberg, “The Jewish Community of Tripoli in Relation to Italian Jewry and Italians in Tripoli,” in Les relations intercommunautaires juives en méditerranée occidentale XIIe– XXe siècles, ed. J. L. Miege (Paris: CNRS, 1984), 88n9; Simon, “Language Change,” 105. In Cyrenaica, 315 Jews attended the Italian state network in 1921–22; see ibid., 119n6. The total number of students in the Italian schools in 1921–22 was 2,173 and in 1938–39 7,344; see Marius and Mary-Jane Deeb, Libya Since the Revolution: Aspects of Social and Political Development (New York: Praeger, 1982) 22. Though most Muslims studied in their traditional or special “indigenous” state schools, there was also a school in Tripoli for children with trachoma, where children of all religions studied. On school attendance during the Italian period, see also Steele-Greig, 17–23, 53–55. According to Ronald De Marco, The Italianization of African Natives: Government Native Education in the Italian Colonies, 1890–1937 (New York: Columbia University Teachers’ College, 1943), 109n27, in 1936–37, there were 56 metropolitan schools in Libya with 8,009 students, of them 1,440 native Jews as well as 6,298 Italians and 125 foreigners (some of whom might have been Jews); only 146 were Muslims. In 1927–28, there were 265 Jewish boys out of 304 students in the Pietro Verri school and 430 Jewish girls out of 467 students in the Margherita di Savoia school. In 1934–35, there were 1,411 students in the Pietro Verri and Margherita di Savoia schools, all of them Jewish, and in 1937 the three state schools for Jews in Tripoli had 1,813 students; see ibid., 118n149; De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 321n15, states that there were 3,000 Jewish children of elementary school age in Tripoli in 1929: 2,000 boys and 1,000 [sic] girls; of the latter, 500 attended the Italian school. On the knowledge of Italian among Jews and Arabs, see De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 69; ha-Kohen, Higid Mordekhai, 35–36.

Jews as Promoters of Italian Civilization in Libya

As growing numbers of young Jews received an Italian education, they became more Italianized, though they retained many traditional customs. Families made sure that Jewish knowledge would not be lost among the younger generation, and most Jewish boys who attended Italian schools received also what was considered as required Jewish education in the afternoon at their school or in traditional Jewish schools. Jewish girls who attended school, however, received only modern education, either in Italian schools or in the AIU school in Tripoli, so that their formal education included very little Jewish studies. The traditional Jewish communal leadership continued to ignore female education in spite of the growing numbers of Jewish girls who attended non-Jewish schools and despite external attempts to change the situation. Some leaders of the Board of Italian Jewish Communities (to which Libyan Jews belonged during the Italian period), were sent on various missions to Libya, and tried to establish Jewish community-based female education (both academic and vocational), but to no avail. Among these leaders was the deputy chief rabbi of Torino, Dario Disegni, who visited Libya in the years 1930–31, and whose efforts in this regard bore no fruit. This changed in 1931 when the Ben-Yehudah Society, advocating the study of the Hebrew language, established an evening school, ha-Tiqvah, on the local initiative of young Jews who were not part of the established leadership. There, Jewish girls and women were taught modern, spoken Hebrew and some Jewish education by a public indigenous Jewish institution.9

MEDIA Following the increase of Italian educational activities in Libya and the growing number of Jews who mastered the Italian language, coupled with a certain amount of political liberalization in the Ottoman Empire following the Young Turks revolution (1908)—which brought about the easing of press censorship—the number of journals in Libya increased; these included at least four in 9 Harvey Goldberg, “The Jewish Community of Tripoli in Relation to Italian Jewry and Italians in Tripoli,” in Les relations intercommunautaires juives en méditerranée occidentale XIIIe-XXe siecles, ed. J. L .Miege (Paris: CNRS, 1984), 85–87; De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 85–86, 90, 321n15; Shalom Sela, ha-Hinukh bi-Kehilot Yehude Luv (Nahalal: Yad Eli’ezer L. Yafeh, 1987), 82–89; Khalfon, Lanu ule-Vanenu, 65. On the conflicting trends within the Jewish education in Libya, between Italianization and Hebrew revival, see Simon, “Language Change,” and Harvey E. Goldberg and Claudio G. Segrè, “Mixtures of Diverse Substances: Education and the Hebrew Language among the Jews of Libya, 1875–1951,” in Essays in the Social Scientific Study of Judaism and Jewish Society, ed. S. Fishbane and J. Lightstone (Montreal: Concordia University Press, 1990), 151–201.

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Italian, all published in Tripoli. These journals were edited by Libyan Jews and were written mostly by Jews, and were aimed mainly at a Jewish audience. Gustavo Arbib (1877–1918) brought the first Latin-script printing press to Tripoli and, on January 8, 1909, published the first Italian newspaper there: Il Giornale di Tripoli. On December 24, 1909, he published together with his brother Emilio (b. 1884) the daily: L’Eco di Tripoli, edited by Moshe Ortona (1850–1916) and Vittorio Aghib (b. 1883). Ortona also published and edited Il Messaggero di Tripoli. To these was added Il Progresso. The publishers and editors of the Italian journals were in close contact with the Italian consulate in Tripoli, which supported them financially. These journals spread Italian culture in Libya, advocated Italian nationalism, and aimed at advancing Italian political goals there. They even accused the Ottoman authorities of trying to curb Italian initiatives and expansion in the region. The fact that the Italian consulate gave financial support to four Italian journals in Tripoli shows that Italy regarded having an audience that was able and willing to read the journals, and which had already indicated a readiness to accept their political ideas, as a good investment. While it is not clear how many of each journal issue was printed and how many people were exposed to each issue, one can surmise that these papers must have made some impression on their readers, most of whom were Jews, as well as some Maltese and Italian Christians. In addition to their journalistic activities in Tripoli, some Libyan Jews contributed to Italian journals: thus, Vittorio Hassan (Tappo) (1882–1912) was the Tripolitan correspondent of La Stampa of Torino.10 The growing mood of Italian nationalism was particularly conspicuous among the younger generation that studied in Italian schools and grew to admire Italian cultural, social, and political ideas. This mood was further encouraged by the aggressive and at times insolent behavior of the Italian consulate, spreading Italian nationalism and disrespect toward the Ottoman regime. While the support within the Jewish community for Italy’s political plans regarding Libya during the late Ottoman period was not significant, it grew as a result of Italian education and media. Under Italian rule, the involvement of Libyan Jews in the Italian media continued. Thus, on March 19, 1931, Il Messaggero ebraico was established in 10 Attilio Milano, “Un secolo di stampa periodica ebraica in Italia, App. 2: La stampa ebraica nella colonie e possedimenti italiani,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 12, nos. 7–9 (Milano, 1938): 135–36; Raccah, Lunario ebraico, 7, 10–11, 16, 18, 20; Raccah, Arbib, 9, 11; “La Presse en Tripolitaine,” Revue du Monde Musulmane 7 (1909): 361–62.

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Tripoli, initiated by Rabbi Dario Disegni, who collaborated with the editors Pace Hassan and Raffael Arbib, and it appeared every fifteen days for about a year. Another paper published in Tripoli was the daily La Nuova Italia, which provided general information. Both papers had sections in Judeo-Arabic, indicating the attention they paid to the Jewish community, including those who did not understand or read Italian. The involvement of Libyan Jews in journalism was not, however, limited to activities in Libya and to advocating Italianization. Some of the Zionist leaders of Libya (including Elia Nhaisi, 1890–1918) published in the Italian Jewish periodicals (e.g., Israel, the organ of the Board of Italian Jewish Communities, and Settimana Israelitica). Some of the Hebrew periodicals that were published in Tripoli had an Italian section, in order to reach wider circles at a time when many indigenous Jews knew Italian better than Hebrew. Another Italian publication was Gabriele Raccah’s Lunario-ebraico libico 5698.11

ECONOMIC LIFE Many Jews in Libya were involved in trade, be it peddling in the countryside, having a shop in the market, or trading internationally.12 The latter group was composed mostly of Jews holding a European nationality, with the majority being Italian and British citizens. During the Ottoman period, Jews also played an important role in financial affairs, mostly in providing loans and foreign exchange, due to their involvement in international trade and in precious metals. It was not unusual for the same person to be involved in both commercial and financial activities. Thus, it was Jews, and not the local Ottoman authorities, who set the rates of exchange.13 Jewish businessmen in Libya became aware of the Italian plans for their country as a result of their contacts with their European counterparts. Similarly, Italy realized the potential of indigenous Jews in advancing Italy’s colonial ambitions in Libya. Consequently, during the late Ottoman period, Jews were 11 Simon, “Language Change,” 117; Milano, “Un secolo,” 136; Times, September 29, 1911; Raccah, Lunario 5698, 15, 20, 22. 12 On the economic activities of Libyan Jews in the late Ottoman period, see Rachel Simon, “The Socioeconomic Role of the Tripolitanian Jews in the Late Ottoman Period,” in Communautés juives des marges sahariennes du Maghreb, ed. M. Abitbol ( Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1982), 321–28. 13 Simon, “The Relations of the Jewish Community,” 327nn26–29; ha-Kohen, Higid Mordekhai, 52, 54, 124.

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involved in the Italian economic penetration of Libya. A large number of the staff of Banco di Roma, which opened branches in Tripoli (1907), Benghazi (1910), and thirteen other agencies, were Jews, and most of the bank’s business was conducted with Jews. The bank’s Tripoli branch was in a building purchased from Eugenio Arbib, and the contract stipulated that the bank would employ for at least twelve months Arbib’s previous employees, who were mostly Jews. When, in April 1908, the bank tried to force them to work on Saturday, they warned that they would take their children out of the Italian school. Eventually a compromise was reached, according to which someone would replace the Jews on Saturdays and, on Sundays, the latter could work for themselves. The bank, which served as a disguised government agency for economic activities, was very active in spreading Italian economic interests in Libya. For example, it seized real estate when loans were not paid, built factories for processing agricultural products, distributed charity, bribed local dignitaries, and was in charge of a shipping company. In all these activities, the bank benefited from the knowledge of its Jewish employees. Some Jews held responsible positions: the agent of the shipping agency Florio & Rubattino in Benghazi was R. Rahamim Fargion (d. 1907) and later his son Elia (who also served as the Italian vice consul in Benghazi), and in Tripoli the agents were Enrico Labi (1861–1908) and Ernesto Labi.14

LEGAL STATUS Following the Italian invasion of Libya and the suppression of the Arab resistance, the Italian state, with its cultural, social, and economic institutions, could act freely. During this period, the contacts between Jewish institutions and individuals in Libya and Italy increased, especially in the areas of the rabbinate, the Zionist organization, and journalism, in addition to the traditional economic and family ties. The Jewish community belonged to the Board of Italian Jewish Communities, and the Zionist Organization of Tripoli was a member of the Italian Zionist Federation.15 The Italian authorities were aware of the fact that 14 Simon, “The Relations of the Jewish Community,” 323–24; Raccah, Lunario 5698, 7, 13, 18, 22, 23; Nunes-Vais, Gli Ebrei di Tripoli, 5, 7; Yahadut Luv, 32; Meir Levi to AIU Paris, June 18, 1908—AAIU, IV E22b; ha-Kohen, Higid Mordekhai, 167–68; Mordekhai ha-Kohen, “Yoman ha-masa’ot bi-Tripolitanyah,” Genazim 3 (1969): 62; The Jew (i.e., ha-Yehudi, a Hebrew-language paper published in London), May 16, 1907, May 14, 1908; The Times of London (newspaper), September 29, 1911; Slouschz, Sefer ha-Masa’ot, vol. 2, 172. 15 See files Z4/2136, Z4/2571 & Z4/3238/I in Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem (CZA).

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their largest source of indigenous support continued to be Jewish, including those Jews who were not Italian citizens, contrary to the Muslim population, which opposed Italian rule and the last members of which surrendered only in the 1930s. This Jewish support, however, was not reciprocated in the issue of citizenship. Under Italian rule, most Jews who had held Italian citizenship continued to hold it, but the majority of the Jewish community, despite its support of Italian rule, did not automatically receive Italian citizenship, but only a special Libyan status.16 This fact had its repercussions in the relations between the community and the authorities. For example, according to Italian legislation, one had to be an Italian citizen in order to participate in the elections to the Jewish communal council that oversaw internal affairs and mediated with the regime. Moreover, because of the absence of indigenous rabbis who were Italian citizens, rabbis from Italy were appointed as religious heads of the Tripolitan community council. Consequently, while these rabbis wished to guard and advance the interests of the community in their communications with the authorities, they were influenced also by the fact that they were appointed by the regime, and that their own background and intellectual environment were at times closer to that of the regime than to that of the indigenous community. At times, though, the Italian-appointed rabbi sided with local customs against the regime’s view, as was the case with Gustavo Castelbolonesi, who supported the Tripolitan Jewish court in a case of private kiddushin. As a result, the Italian authorities terminated his appointment, and he had to return to Italy.17

CULTURE AND SOCIETY Italianization was paramount for many students who were from the upper and middle classes (a minority within the community, which was mostly poor). Quite a few of them sought integration into Italian society and improvement of their status in the commercial and financial sectors. Italianization also had implications for the position of women. As mentioned previously, Jewish girls were included in the Italian educational network soon after its inception (and the AIU), while formal female education was almost nonexistent in the Jewish community. This continued to be the norm even longer in the surrounding 16 Simon, “Language Change,” 120–21n25. 17 Simon, “Language Change,” 111; Simon, “The Relations of the Jewish Community,” 65–66; De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 155–58; Khalfon, Lanu ule-Vanenu, 65, 71; Abravanel, Tripoli to AIU Paris, June 10, 1935—AAIU, I C29.

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Muslim society. Although the move toward coeducation among Libyan Jews was very slow, mixed activities of both genders became accepted in a variety of extracurricular activities in and out of school and in the emerging youth movements. While Jewish women who tended toward Italianization were much less involved in political, social, and economic activities in comparison to Zionist women, some of them were active in Jewish women’s welfare organizations, and a few were also part of Italian Libyan and Italian Jewish organizations. Some of these women were even ready to marry against their fathers’ will—even to nonJews—and were prepared to seek the help of the Italian administration for this purpose. The Italian authorities supported them in their struggle against what the former considered “primitive” local customs. These cases were particularly problematic for the Italian rabbis who headed the Jewish community.18

CONCLUSION From the late nineteenth century under Ottoman rule, Jews were involved in advancing Italian culture and ideology in Libya as well as Italy’s economic and political goals. Jews did not initiate the Italian occupation of Libya, but they did help to advance several early aspects of Italy’s peaceful penetration of Libya; most of them did not oppose the conquest and some even assisted it. During the Italian period, the main indigenous support for the regime was Jewish, and the percentage of Italianized Jews was much higher than that of the Arabs. Similarly, the connection between the Jews of Libya and those of Italy, both personally and organizationally, had strengthened. Developments during the 1930s and early 1940s, with the rise of Fascism and World War II, worsened the relations between the Fascist regime and the Jews, though many Libyan Jews continued to sympathize with the Italian culture and people despite the horrors of World War II.

18 Simon, “Language Change,” 115–16, 134n34.

CHAPTER 20

The Relations of the Holy See with the Jewish People after the 1993 Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel: Divergence between the Interreligious Dialogue with the Jews of Rome and the Diplomatic Dialogue with Israel ELIAV TAUB

INTRODUCTION During the first half of the twentieth century, the policies of the Holy See typically were opposed to the national manifestation of the Jewish people in the State of Israel. This pattern began to change after the Vatican Council declaration of 1965, which removed collective responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus from the Jewish people. Indeed, for the first time, the Roman Catholic Church relaxed its opposition to the establishment of the State of Israel as a

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manifestation of the political aspirations of the Jews.1 Against this background, a dialogue at the interreligious level has been underway, particularly during the past three decades, between Christianity and world Jewry. This dialogue has developed over the years and has even included an unprecedented papal visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome, recognition of the Jewish Holocaust, and pilgrimage to Christian holy places throughout the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. At the same time, the dialogue also includes complicated and conflicting messages regarding the Church’s obligation to abandon anti-Jewish theological perspectives.2 In contrast to the interreligious level, at the diplomatic level the Fundamental Agreement between the State of Israel and the Holy See was signed at the end of 1993. The agreement included the establishment of subcommittees to clarify legal and financial issues and, overall, expressed the church’s opposition to antisemitism. A supplemental agreement followed in 1997, and an initiative to open a dialogue between the Chief Rabbinate and the Holy See was begun in 2003,3 all of which reinforced the perception that Jewish-Catholic relations were steadily being built up.4 Through an examination of interviews, speeches, and numerous letters of John Paul II and his successor Benedict XVI, this article seeks to demonstrate that after signature of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement with the State of Israel, as of the time of this writing (2012), the Holy See has refrained from conducting an interreligious dialogue with the government authorities of the State of Israel (except for a dialogue with the Chief Rabbinate—perceived as representing the Jewish world5 that does not address the issue of the State of Is 1 Michael Perko, “Toward a ‘Sound and Lasting Basis’: Relations between the Holy See, the Zionist Movement, and Israel, 1896–1996,” Israel Studies 2, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 1–21. 2 Sergio Itzhak Minerbi, “Benedict XVI, the Lefebvrians, the Jews, and the State of Israel,” Jewish Political Studies Review 21, nos. 3–4 (Fall 2009): 7–31. 3 “Diplomatic Relations between Israel and the Vatican” [in Hebrew], May 1, 2009, Israel Foreign Ministry, http://www.mfa.gov.il/PopeinIsrael/Hebrew/Israel-Vatican_Diplomatic_Relations.htm. 4 David Rosen, “Pope Benedict XVI and Catholic-Jewish Relations,” April 20, 2009, Israel Foreign Ministry, http://www.mfa.gov.il/PopeinIsrael/Hebrew/Pope_Benedict_XVI_ Jewish-Catholic_Relations.htm. 5 The Chief Rabbinate is defined as the Chief Rabbinate of Israel as a people rather than the State of Israel. In any event, John Paul II’s speech at the Chief Rabbinate ignores the State of Israel and refers to the rabbinate as “Hechal Shlomo” (the name of the building). Moreover, the pope placed his comments in the context of the discourse with Diaspora Jewry when he emphasized that his remarks in fact reiterated what he had said to the Jews of Rome. “Jubilee Pilgrimage of His Holiness John Paul II to the Holy Land (March 20–26, 2000): Visit to the Chief Rabbis at Hechal Shlomo, Speech of John Paul II,” March 23, 2000, Vatican web-

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rael).6 Instead, the relations of the Holy See with the State of Israel take the general diplomatic form of relations, as with any state, that follow from the right of self-determination as a modern—rather than a theological—matter. But they do not touch upon issues of interreligious relations relevant to the State of Israel and the Holy See, such as recognition of the Jews, including Israeli Jews, as the direct successors of Bnei Israel (“the Children of Israel”), or recognition of their historical right to the Promised Land, the Holy Land.

THE HOLY SEE TURNS TO RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE WITH THE JEWS OF ROME AND THE DIASPORA During the first half of the twentieth century, the policies of the Holy See typically were opposed to the national manifestation of the Jewish people in the State of Israel. This pattern began to change visibly after the Second Vatican Council declaration of 1965 in the document Nostra Aetate (“In Our Age”). The document deals with the church’s relations with non-Christian religions, including Judaism and with the Jewish people. The document marks the end of a long era in the history of Catholic–Jewish relations and the turning over of a new page of dialogue between the two ancient communities. In this context, the Roman Catholic Church collectively absolved the Jewish people for the crucifixion of Jesus and, indeed, for the first time rescinded its opposition to the establishment of the State of Israel as a manifestation of the political aspirations of the Jews. Against this background, a process of dialogue at the interreligious level between Christianity and Roman Jewry specifically, and world Jewry generally, began four decades ago and has evolved over the years.7 Thus, in the early 1970s, a dialogue began between Catholic organizations and official Jewish organizations. During this time, the Office for Catholic– Jewish Relations and the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) jointly established the International Catholic–Jewish  Liaison Committee (ILC), which has met regularly since 1971. In 1974, the Office for Catholic–Jewish Relations, which was established in 1966 as part site, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/travels/documents/hf_jpii_spe_ 20000323_chief-rabbis_en.html. 6 Nicolas Baguelin, “The Commission of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel for Dialogue for the Vatican and the Supreme Vatican Commission for Relations with the Jews, February 2003— Rome” [in Hebrew], June 18, 2007, http://www.catholim.com/spip.php?article2977. 7 See Aharon Liron, Christianity and the Holy Land [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Tcherikover Publishers, 1997).

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of the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity, received a new name: the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. This was no bureaucratic office with limited authority, but a commission representing the Holy See in all its glory and the Roman Catholic Church establishment in its entirety, engaged in a religious dialogue with Judaism. Since the 1980s, the dialogue has expanded to Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora. In 1980, two years after his election to what would be a twenty-six-year reign, in a speech before the Jewish community of Mainz in Germany, Pope John Paul II declared that God’s covenant with the Jews is eternally valid.8 Six years later, in 1986, Pope John Paul II chose to visit the Great Synagogue of Rome, thus becoming the first pope in church history to visit a synagogue in general, and in particular a synagogue located in Rome. In his speech, the pope reiterated the Second Vatican Council’s condemnation of any form of discrimination against Jews, adding, “You are our dearly beloved brothers and, in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.”9

THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: THE CHURCH DRAWS THEOLOGICALLY CLOSER TO JUDAISM AND ISRAEL’S CHIEF RABBINATE Benedict XVI, John Paul II’s successor, continued in his predecessor’s unprecedented tracks toward dialogue with the Jews. At the very beginning of his appointment, he invited Jewish leaders for the first time to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II and his own papal inauguration ceremony at St. Peter’s Basilica.10 About a month later, Benedict made another demonstration of the importance of dialogue when he received a delegation of the IJCIC, which is an official partner of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. It is noteworthy that the pope received the Jewish delegation even before he received delegations representing other Christian denominations, let alone other religions, which is evidence of the great importance that the pope attaches to dialogue. Indeed, this approach characterized his entire first year, both in terms of meetings with Jewish organizations and in terms of frequent dialogue with Jewish leaders, including the chief rabbis of Israel and the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni. When receiving the latter, 8 “Milestones in Recent Catholic-Jewish Relations,” May 5, 2009, available on the website of Saint James Vicariate: http://www.catholic.co.il/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=398:milestones-in-recent-catholic-jewish-relations&catid=10:documents&Itemid=16&lang=it. 9 Ibid. 10 http://www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm.

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Benedict declared, “The Catholic Church is your close friend. We love you, and we cannot help but love you because of the forefathers: indeed, because of them we see you dearly beloved brothers.”11 From an examination of speeches and numerous letters, one gains the impression of a common theological denominator between Judaism and Christianity that has recurred over the years in the messages conveyed by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. These have included the Old Testament, remembrance of the forefathers (especially Abraham), mention of the Ten Commandments, and the importance of the principle of monotheism, as well as family values and peace. For example, in 2005, on the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Nostra Aetate during the Second Vatican Council, Benedict XVI noted that “my esteemed successor … declared that whoever knows Jesus Christ, knows Judaism.”12 Statements in this spirit were made on various occasions. Moreover, the popes repeatedly reiterated their opposition to antisemitism and the Holocaust.13 The theological aspect of the Holy See’s dialogue with the Jews is reflected even in the synods (meeting of bishops). The Synod of Bishops on the Word of God that took place in Rome from October 5–26, 2008 found resonance in an Apostolic Exhortation published under the title “Verbum Domini—The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.”14 This lengthy document mentions the importance of the Scriptures in the life of the church. The title of the first part is “Verbum Dei” (“Word of God”), and the first chapter “underlines the will of God to reveal Himself to the human person in His word.” The second chapter focuses on “the response of the human person to the divine initiative.” The third and most important chapter for our purposes analyses the “interpretation of the Scriptures in the life of the Church,” and includes a discussion of the importance of dialogue between Jews and Christians. Thus, dialogue is granted a clearly theological significance, aided even by the Holy Scriptures. For the sake of comparison, the dialogue between the Holy See and Muslims, as reflected in the Synod of October 2010, appears purely instrumental.

11 Rosen, “Pope Benedict XVI.” 12 Nicolas Bageulin, “Pope Benedict XVI during Visit to Synagogue in Cologne: ‘God will grant strength to His People; God will bless His People with peace,’” August 19, 2005, http:// www.catholim.com/ spip.php?article2015. 13 Ibid. 14 “Published Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation ‘Verbum Domini,’” November 11, 2010, Saint James Vicariate for Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel, http://www.catholic.co.il/ index.php?option=com_ content&view=article&id=862:published-post-synodal-apostolic-exhortation-qverbum-dominiq&catid=30: news-archives&Itemid=36&lang=en.

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This synod,15 which took place in Rome, gathered together the heads of the Catholic churches in the Middle East, as well as representatives of all levels and groups in order to discuss the state and future of the Roman Catholic Church, with emphasis on the Middle East. The synod’s guideline setting and the activities taken in this regard reveal a difference between the approach toward Christian relations with Jews and the approach to relations with Muslims. Whereas the approach toward Jews is measured explicitly at the religious level, the approach toward Islam is not measured in theological parameters but in terms of instrumental “cooperation” with Muslims,16 even though the principle of monotheism is common to all three religions, as determined by Nostra Aetate (“In Our Time”) in 1965. As if that were not enough, the Roman Catholic Church’s department for interreligious dialogue with Islam was terminated recently,17 and Benedict has voiced criticism of the extent of tolerance in the Muslim religion.18 Interreligious dialogue with Judaism involved not only the Jews of Rome and the Diaspora. Rather, it took on another dimension and expanded to include the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel is the supreme rabbinical institution of the State of Israel, operating today under the power of the 1980 Chief Rabbinate of Israel Law. According to the law, the rabbinate’s authority includes responsibility for issues of kashrut, for certification of rabbis and rabbinical judges, and for providing answers to questions from the public about halakhah ( Jewish law), while being subject to Supreme Court

15 Rabbi David Rosen’s speech to the Synod, October 13, 2010; Rosen quoted the words of Pope Benedict XVI from August 2005 in Cologne, when he described relations with Islam as “a vital necessity … on which in large measure our future depends (sect.95).” Saint James Vicariate for Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel, http://www.catholic.co.il/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=840%3Arabbi-david-rosens-speech-to-the-synod&catid=10%3Adocuments&Itemid=16&lang=en. 16 “Middle East Synod: Guidelines,” January 22, 2010, http://www.catholic.co.il/index.php?option= com_content&view=article&id=584:middle-east-synod-guidelines&catid=30:news-archives&Itemid=36& lang=en. 17 Nicolas Baguelin, “Pope Benedict XVI Criticizes the Perception of God in Islam and Sets Terms for Real Dialogue with Christianity” [in Hebrew], September 18, 2006, http:// www.catholim.com/spip.php?article2657; Meron Rapoport, “Political Error or Calculated Move?” Haaretz, September 17, 2006, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/political-error-or-calculated-move-1.197391. 18 Robin Twite, “Interfaith Activity in Israel” (originally written in 1999, updated April 2009), http://www.mfa.gov.il/PopeinIsrael/Background_Information/Interfaith+Activity+in+Israel.htm.

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oversight on these issues.19 The chief rabbinate thus has no legal authority to conduct a religious and theological dialogue in the name of Israel with the Holy See, and, therefore, in terms of Israeli law, this dialogue is essentially the same as the dialogues with the communities in Rome and the Diaspora. Nor is the issue of dialogue with the rabbinate mentioned in the Fundamental Agreement with Israel.20 None of this, however, prevented John Paul II from paving another path to dialogue, as noted, in the form of dialogue between the Bilateral Commission of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel and the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, which was established at his initiative. This dialogue even received words of support from Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Israel in 2009 and in his remarks at the Great Synagogue of Rome in 2010.21 In the context of dialogue between the chief rabbinate and the Holy See, meetings were held beginning in 2003 twice or three times each year over two to three days. In terms of the theological characteristics of the dialogue with the rabbinate, there are indeed common threads between the Holy See’s dialogue with the rabbinate and the dialogue that the Holy See conducts with Jewish communities in Rome and throughout the Diaspora: both of them deal with the Holy Scriptures and monotheism as well as the biblical forefathers.22

THE 1993 FUNDAMENTAL AGREEMENT: DIPLOMATIC DIALOGUE WITH ISRAEL AT THE PRACTICAL LEVEL The essence of Israel’s self-perception is defined in its Declaration of Independence. The drafters of the declaration cited two principles that, in their view, establish the legitimacy of the State of Israel: the international principle by which it is the natural right of the Jewish people, like that of any people, to exist within its sovereign state; and the historical principle centered on the relationship between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, which has existed continuously over thousands of years from biblical times. Thus, according to the Declaration 19 http://www.rabanut.gov.il/show_item.asp?levelId=61631 [in Hebrew]; see also, Eyal Danon and Benny Lau, “The Tension between Religion and State on Matters of Kashrut” [in Hebrew], Da’at 69 (2001–2): http://www.daat.ac.il/mishpat-ivri/skirot/69-2.htm. 20 The dialogue is not even mentioned in the website of the Chief Rabbinate. 21 Kobi Nahshoni, “Pope to Rabbis: I am committed to peace with Judaism” [in Hebrew] Ynet May 12, 2009, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3714560,00.html. 22 See, for example, “The Holy See’s Commission for Interreligious Relations with the Jews, Declaration of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel for Relations with the Catholic Church and the Holy See’s Commission for Interreligious Relations with the Jews, December 1–3, 2003” [in Hebrew], February 23, 2004, http://www. catholim.com/spip.php?article67.

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of Independence, the Jewish state is a state that grants national independence to the Jewish people on a historical, international basis, yet it is not ruled by the laws of the Jewish religion. At the same time, the Jewish religion is not absent from the Jewish state; rather, it serves as a source of inspiration and, even more so, of traditional, national culture, and enables the traditional Jewish nation to have a modern national expression. Thus, for example, Saturday—the Sabbath—is the weekly day of rest in Israel, and Jewish holidays are the official holidays and days of rest. The discussion that follows presents the approach to the Jewish state that was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church, which is neutral in terms of culture and history, and relies solely on the international principle as the source of legitimacy of the State of Israel.23

DIVERGENCE OF THE DIALOGUE ON THE PART OF THE CHURCH: REALPOLITIK APPROACH TO THE STATE OF ISRAEL AND RELIGIOUS APPROACH TO DIASPORA JEWRY In contrast to the interreligious sphere, an encyclical was published in 1985 on the matter of “Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church.” The initial impression is that the encyclical revived the Roman Catholic Church’s outlook on the State of Israel, devoid of any Jewish theological characteristics: “The existence of the People of Israel, when other peoples have disappeared without a trace, is a historical fact and a sign that must be interpreted as the will of God.”24 It follows from this that the church recognizes the State of Israel at the practical level as an existing fact, not at the religious level, and its attitude toward the State of Israel is solely diplomatic, in accordance with international law. In this spirit, in a speech before leaders of the Jewish community in Miami on September 11, 1987, John Paul II stated that the Jewish people have “the right to a homeland, as does every civil People, in accordance with international law.”25 Again, the attitude toward Israel emanates from a legal–civil point of origin, not a theological–religious point as adopted in relation to the Jews of Rome and the 23 Alexander Yakobson, “A Jewish and Democratic State—Position Paper for the Presidential Conference, 2012” [in Hebrew], www.presidentconf.org.il/2012/uploads/file_ 183740762012.doc . 24 Liron, Christianity, 344. 25 Ibid. [translation from Hebrew by E. T.]; see also David Rosen, “The Impact of the Papal Visit to Israel—John Paul II,” March 1, 2009, Israel Foreign Ministry, http://www.mfa.gov.il/PopeinIsrael/.Background_Information/Impact_of_the_Papal_Visit_to_Israel-Apr_2009.htm.

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Diaspora.26 (The significance lies in the Holy See’s recognition of Jews generally, including Israeli Jews, as direct successors of the ancient Bnei Israel but nonrecognition of their historical right to the Promised Land, the Holy Land. From the Holy See’s perspective, the right of self-determination is a modern issue, not a theological issue. Therefore, the Holy See makes a distinction that apparently also serves the political purpose of not recognizing the historical right of the Jewish people but does recognize the Jewish people’s right of self-determination, a right of every people.) In this sense, the Roman Catholic Church views the State of Israel as a neutral civil mechanism in cultural terms, and it regards the presence of Jews not as constituting a Jewish state but a state with Jews. The practical aspect of nonrecognition of Israel’s sovereignty over holy places is reflected in the Vatican’s stance regarding the status of Jerusalem. During the 1940s, the Vatican was opposed to Jewish control and rule over holy places; it supported internationalization of Jerusalem as determined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947.27 After 1967 and the capture of Jerusalem by the State of Israel, however, the Holy See abandoned this stance in favor of the internationalization of the Old City alone. The Vatican sidelined the concept of internationalization itself in December 1993, in favor of international guarantees prior to the signing of the Fundamental Agreement with Israel. Despite its changed position, the Holy See did not recognize Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem but, rather, was constrained by reality. In early 1999, Vatican Foreign Minister Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran summarized the position that was taking shape in the Vatican regarding Jerusalem: In the beginning, the Holy See supported the proposal for internationalizing the territory, the “corpus separatum” called for by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947. In the years that followed, although the objective of internationalization was shown to be unattainable, the Holy See continued to call for the protection of the Holy City’s identity. It consistently drew attention to the need for an international commitment in this regard. To this end, the Holy See has 26 Compare, for example, the speech of Benedict XVI in the Rome Synagogue on January 17, 2010, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2010/january/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_ 20100117_sinagoga_en.html, with his speech in Israel on May 11, 2009, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2009/may/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20090511_welcome-tel-aviv_en.html. 27 Amnon Ramon, Christian Views on the Jerusalem Question [in Hebrew] (The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1997), 6–8, http://www.jiis.org.il/.upload/nuzeri.pdf.

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In his remarks, the foreign minister acknowledged that Vatican policy had changed as a direct result of practical policy that takes into account the fact that “the objective of internationalization was shown to be unattainable.” At the same time, however, he emphasized that, at the level of the ideal, the Holy See does not recognize de facto Jewish sovereignty and is always striving to find solutions that will guarantee “protection of the Holy City’s identity.” One should bear in mind that these remarks were made after the 1993 Fundamental Agreement and the 1997 supplemental agreement. Another diplomatic process involving the Vatican demonstrates its divided approach toward Israel in the diplomatic, realistic discourse and the theological, idealistic dialogue with the Jewish people in the Diaspora that took place soon after the signing of the Fundamental Agreement with the State of Israel. Two years before the signing of the Fundamental Agreement, after months of clandestine meetings, the Holy See agreed to sign an agreement with the State of Israel without establishing full diplomatic relations (while providing insufficiently clear explanations). In September 1993, after the summit meeting between then–prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat, the pope agreed within about two months to sign an agreement with the State of Israel, thereby establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel. The reason for the abrupt change appears to be rooted in underlying theological considerations that do not permit the Holy See to recognize Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel, particularly not over holy places, unless this sovereignty is lax and not exclusive. Israeli recognition of Palestinian nationalism and its right to autonomy in the territory of the Land of Israel is what paved the way for the Holy See to establish relations with the State of Israel, which now acknowledges that it is not the sole sovereign over the Land of Israel.29 Indeed, in 1994, relations were established between the Holy See and the Palestinian Authority, which reinforced the challenge to Israeli sovereignty and was viewed in the Knesset as establishing facts on the ground and as 28 “The Holiness of Jerusalem for Christianity” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, http://www.jcpa.org.il/JCPAHeb/Templates/showpage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=2& TMID=84&FID=175&PID=287. 29 Gabriel Zeldin, The Institutions of the “Christian Church” and the Jewish-Israeli Problem from the Mid-1940s to the Early 1990s [in Hebrew], https://card.achva.ac.il/Journals/pdf/1994_11. pdf.

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inappropriate political intervention.30 As a result, the Fundamental Agreement between the State of Israel and the Holy See signed in late 1993 did not include the Holy See’s approach to the State of Israel at the religious level, and it did not recognize the sovereignty of the State of Israel, as the state of the Jewish people, over Christianity’s holy places. In addition, the Fundamental Agreement lacks any of the theological interreligious motifs that were present in the dialogue with the Jews of Rome and the Diaspora. The agreement in fact deals primarily with clearly diplomatic issues, starting with the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel, through denunciation of antisemitism toward the Jewish people, and ending with ensuring freedom of worship and preservation of the status quo in Christianity’s holy places. Additionally, the agreement addresses economic aspects and property rights of the Roman Catholic Church in the State of Israel, in the context of which subcommittees to clarify legal and financial issues were established.31 The supplemental agreement signed in November 1997 also deals with diplomatic aspects, while defining the Catholic church’s standing under Israeli law and, simultaneously, granting church recognition of Israeli law on civil and legal matters. In these agreements, the church saw itself as having a superior standing to that of the young State of Israel as an eternal, super-temporal entity.32 Remarks in the spirit of the practical approach toward Israel were made on May 15, 2009, when Pope Benedict XVI gave his farewell speech at Ben-Gurion Airport after his visit to Israel. This speech, which many viewed as disappointing,33 contains a summary of sorts of the papal visit, and therefore—not coincidentally, presumably—it was presented in a neutral location, Ben-Gurion Airport. In his remarks, the pope ignores the national identity of the State of Israel and does not even use the term “Judaism”: As I prepare to return to Rome, may I share with you some of the powerful impressions that my pilgrimage to the Holy Land has left with me. I had fruitful discussions with the civil authorities both in Israel and in the Palestinian Territories, and I witnessed the great efforts that both 30 Fifteenth Knesset of Israel, Meeting 89, February 23, 2000, The Knesset, Jerusalem, http:// www.knesset.gov.il/tql/knesset/Knesset15/html/20000223@[email protected]. 31 “Diplomatic Relations between Israel and the Vatican,” Israel Foreign Ministry. 32 Amnon Ramon, Christian and Christianity in the Jewish State, Israeli Policy Towards the Churches and the Christian Communities (1948–2010) [in Hebrew], The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 2012, 175, http://www.jiis.org.il/.upload/christianspdf.pdf. 33 Ibid., 180–83.

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Part Four    The Contemporary Perio governments are making to secure people’s well-being… . I have also had the opportunity to meet the leaders of the various Christian Churches and ecclesial communities as well as the leaders of other religions in the Holy Land. This land is indeed a fertile ground for ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, and I pray that the rich variety of religious witness in the region will bear fruit in a growing mutual understanding and respect… .34

Although the pope was speaking from territory of the sovereign State of Israel, the state of the Jewish people, he saw no need specifically to mention his talks with Jewish representatives (the chief rabbinate) or Muslim representatives, even though these took place during his visit. In contrast, he spoke in detail about meetings he had held with Christian leaders and church communities, and he considered the potential for an internal Christian discourse in Israel to be worth mentioning. The spirit of these words makes it clear that, at the religious level, the Holy See views Christianity as the religion with exclusive religious hegemony in the Land of Israel, while the other religions come under its shadow, even though the territories of the State of Israel and Palestinian Authority contain fewer than 100,000 Catholic adherents. In other words, it does not publicly recognize Judaism as the national culture or as the ruling and sovereign religion in the territories of the Land of Israel and Christianity’s holy places. In this perspective, Christianity is the central religion, while the status of Judaism and of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel is comparable to the status of other non-Christian communities and religions. The same logic helps explain the meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, which took place in a Christian setting, at the Franciscan Monastery in Nazareth rather than at the residence of the prime minister, to the dismay of Knesset members.35 Even his meeting with representatives of various interreligious-dialogue organizations took place in a Catholic venue, the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem.36 In contrast, when the pope visits other countries, he is received in symbolic national venues.37 At the diplomatic level, Benedict’s speech described his meetings with 34 Farewell Address of Pope Benedict XVI, Ben-Gurion International Airport, Tel Aviv, May 15, 2009, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2009/may/documents/ hf_ben-xvi_spe_20090515_farewell-tel-aviv.html. 35 Fifteenth Knesset of Israel, Meeting 92 [Hebrew], March 1, 2000, http://www.knesset.gov. il/Tql/knesset/Knesset15/ html/20000301@[email protected]. 36 Timetable for the Pilgrimage of Pope Benedict in the Holy Land [in Hebrew], May 8–15, 2009, Latin Patriarchate website, http://www.lpj.org/newsite2006/news/2009/benoisxvi-voyage/programma-he.html. 37 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/travels/index_outside-italy_en.htm.

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the governments of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, thus signaling that in terms of Realpolitik these governments are sovereign and that he recognizes them with respect to civil questions such as welfare. He even went on to express his support for the political concept of two states for two peoples as well as his opposition to the separation wall between them. In general, the Christian approach predicated on Realpolitik developed in the course of the twentieth century as a response to changes that came in the wake of modernity.38 According to Berger’s “market model,”39 the ability of those loyal to religious tradition to withstand both strategic and tactical changes, and maintain a dialogue with diverse groups, constitutes a guarantee for the continued existence of tradition. Smith40 pointed to Roman Catholic Christianity as an example. Although for centuries it was characterized by a hierarchic-centralized church structure, despite initial reservations41 it nevertheless supported the establishment of confessional parties in the Catholic countries of Europe. Thus, for example, following a long period during which the Catholic establishment functioned as a reactionary force, church policy was characterized by Realpolitik in the process of dialogue with diverse bodies and organizations representing ideas that differed from Catholicism.42 Given this background, one can in our opinion likewise understand the trends toward Realpolitik in the dialogue between the church and religious Jewish organizations, the chief rabbinate, and the State of Israel—and even characterize them. Seliger43 observed two dimensions of use of ideology in the political arena: basic principles and practical ideology. The first dimension includes the final ideological objectives being pursued, whereas the second dimension—practical-operative ideology—includes the practical activities that take reality into consideration on the path to slow actualization of the ideology. As we shall see, on the basis of Seliger, the Holy See can remain loyal to its principles in a modern political context such as the State of Israel, without addressing claims or holding substantive religious dialogues such as on the question of Jewish-Israeli sovereignty over 38 Peter L. Berger, The Social Reality of Religion (Harmondsworth: Penguin University Books, 1973), 131–73. 39 Peter L. Berger, “A Market Model for the Analysis of Ecumenicity,” Social Research 30 (Spring 1963): 77–93. 40 Donald E. Smith, Religion and Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1970), 124–26. 41 Michael Fogarty, Christian Democracy in Western Europe, 1820–1953 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), 311–17. 42 Smith, Religion, 235–37. 43 Martin Seliger, “Fundamental and Operative Ideology: The Two Principal Dimensions of Political Argumentation,” Policy Studies 1 (1970): 325–38.

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Christianity’s holy places. This is part of a process during the course of which some of the basic religious principles, such as the demand for Christian sovereignty over holy places located in Israel, shift to a dimension that is not practical, and become part of a futuristic vision. This is not the case with respect to dialogue with Roman Jewry, which occurs at the ideal level. The dialogue with Roman Jewry deals with essential theological issues about relations between Christianity and Judaism, and does not seek to avoid them. In this discourse, the pope even invokes the terminology of an eternal covenant between the religions, and recalls terms and mythical figures from the New Testament and the common forefathers. The ideal, therefore, is for these religions with their shared history to draw closer to each other, perhaps even to the point of unification if we are to judge by the support exhibited for the return of the Good Friday Prayers. The Realpolitik dimension that found expression in the Church’s response to the State of Israel as a Jewish state and, concomitantly, the latent apprehension about the ethical recognition of that same Jewish State that controlled the Christian holy places is presented in the following table: 44 Period

The Political Situation The Realpolitik Obtaining between Response by the the State of Israel and Church the Palestinian Arabs

The Diversion of the Discourse on the Part of the Church (in Seliger’s Terminology)

January 25, 1991

The decline in the political status of the Palestinians due to the collapse of their patron—the Soviet Union—and the rise of Israel’s status

A document44 in which the church recognized the State of Israel but points to the difficulties in establishing full diplomatic relations due to problems with the status of Jerusalem, the holy places, and the status of the Palestinian national identity

Recognition of the State of Israel in the overt dimension. In the latent dimension, concern for the Church’s status while acting to the detriment of the state’s Jewish character.

Toward the Initiation of the (Oslo) close of 1991 peace process between the State of Israel and the Palestinians

May 20, 1992: a process is launched to formulate an agreement on regulating the church’s status in Israel

In the overt dimension, recognition of the State of Israel. In the latent dimension, damage to the exclusivity of the State of Israel over the Land of Israel

44 Declaration of the Director of the Holy See Press Room, Doctor Joaquim Nav concerning the relation between the Holy See and the State of Israel, January 25, 1991.

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The Political Situation The Realpolitik Obtaining between Response by the the State of Israel and Church the Palestinian Arabs

The Diversion of the Discourse on the Part of the Church (in Seliger’s Terminology)

January 1993 The Oslo agreement reaches final fruition

The church is willing to sign an agreement with Israel but not to maintain full diplomatic relations

A clear bifurcation in relations between the church and the State of Israel: recognition of the state on the overt level; on the latent level awaiting a formal Israeli withdrawal

September 1993

The church agrees to establish full diplomatic relations. Popes John and Benedict do not meet with the prime minister in Jerusalem

In the overt dimension, establishment of full diplomatic relations. In the latent dimension, guaranteeing the church’s status pending a decision over Jerusalem

Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat meet at the White House

Emerging from the table is the divergence in the Roman Catholic Church’s attitude toward Israel and the divided response by the church that derives from Jewish nationalism’s waiver of exclusivity over the Land of Israel and the Christian holy places. As an outgrowth of this complexity, one can perhaps comprehend the intra-Jewish polemic surrounding the issue of the effectiveness of the interreligious Judeo-Christian dialogue. Some Jews worldwide estimated that the dialogue between religions was vital despite the internal opposition and that, despite internal opposition, Pope Benedict himself comprehended that the relations between the Vatican and the State of Israel are intertwined with the relations with the Jewish people and that one could not be separated from the other. 45However, many—primarily in Israel—oppose the continuation of the interreligious dialogue or remain apathetic to it. Firstly, many Israelis who experienced the events of the Holocaust are hostile to any attempt at dialogue with Christianity as a religion, and many Orthodox Jews generally view a dialogue of this type as sterile or harmful.46 Likewise, from a political standpoint, the socialist–secular Israeli 45 Rosen, “Pope Benedict XVI.” 46 David Berger, “Revisiting Confrontation after Forty Years: A Response to Rabbi Eugene Korn,” in Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue: Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2010), 385–91; Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “On Interfaith Relationships,” in A Treasury of Tradition, ed. Norman Lamm and Walter S. Wurzburger (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1967), 78–80.

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governments are not particularly interested in interreligious relations and, on the other hand, nationalist governments espouse a stance that one should adopt a proud stance vis-à-vis the other religions. Moreover, many Christians in Israel define themselves as Palestinians and therefore transform the Israel–Arab political conflict into the focus of relations between religions, and the interreligious dialogue therefore is shunted aside from the agenda.47 Finally, one can assume that church policy, which elevated its aspiration for theological rapprochement between the religions from a latent to an overt aspect, encourages those Jewish organizations worldwide that favor a continuation of the dialogue. However, at the same time—in Israel—the dialogue is not awarded a special position on the public agenda, owing perhaps to the reserved attitude taken by the Roman Catholic Church toward the State of Israel—an attitude that in its latent dimension still harbors the aspiration to erode the status of the Jewish identity in Jerusalem.

CONCLUSIONS During the past three decades, a dialogue at the interreligious level has been underway between Christianity and world Jewry. This dialogue has progressed over the years and even included an unprecedented papal visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome, recognition of the Jewish Holocaust, and pilgrimage to Christian holy places throughout the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In contrast to the interreligious level, at the diplomatic level the Fundamental Agreement between the State of Israel and the Holy See was signed at the end of 1993. This article presents two separate levels of dialogue—religious and diplomatic—between the Jewish people and the State of Israel, on the one hand, and the Holy See as represented by the two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, on the other hand. The religious discourse, the older of the two (about three decades), is characterized by distinctly theological messages and motifs regarding the close relationship between the two religions, Catholicism and Judaism. It should be noted that the religious-theological discourse took place primarily with the community of Rome and other Diaspora communities, such as those in the United States. About a decade ago, another channel was opened in this 47 Robin Twite, “Interfaith Activity in Israel,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, April 20, 2009, retrieved July 8, 2013: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFAHEB/ForeignRelations/ForeignRelations/Pages/ Interfaith_Activity_in_Israel.aspx.

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discourse in the form of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, a body that represents world Jewry. Against the background of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement with Israel, the essence of which was the establishment of diplomatic ties between the Vatican and the State of Israel, and despite the Government of Israel’s expectation of developments parallel to the cultural and historical dialogue between the entities, the Holy See adopted a purely diplomatic approach toward the state. In the context of the diplomatic dialogue, the motifs are primarily political (peace agreements, rejection of antisemitism, and the like), and in this context the legitimacy of the State of Israel is perceived as emanating solely from its being a sovereign state under international law, and not from its being the historical state of the Jewish people, which preceded Christianity. Thus, the places holy to Christianity that are located under the sovereignty of the State of Israel do not receive a cultural and religious stamp of approval as coming under the sovereignty of the Jewish people in the historical sense but, rather, are granted solely diplomatic and political standing. Analysis of the divergence between the theological dialogue with the Jews of Rome and the Diaspora, on the one hand, and the diplomatic dialogue with the State of Israel reveals that, in the latter dialogue, the Holy See adopts a policy that is realistic, open, and attentive to reality, and therefore it recognizes the State of Israel under international law. At the same time, in the less visible dimension, the Roman Catholic Church is having difficulty recognizing historical Jewish sovereignty over the holy places in particular and over the Land of Israel in general, and it aspires to remedy this situation and restore Christian sovereignty to these places. In all matters related to the relations of the Holy See with Diaspora Jewry and the Chief Rabbinate, the Holy See operates along a singular dimension (what is hidden is also what is visible), with the purpose of bringing Judaism closer to Catholicism in the theological sphere.

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CHAPTER 21

Primo Levi: Chemist/Writer, Italian/Jew SMADAR SHIFFMAN

T

his paper deals with two of the major conflicts present in Primo Levi’s life and writing. The first is the constant struggle between his career as a chemist, chosen at a young age before World War II, and his career as a writer, forced on him, so he sometimes claimed, by his experience in Auschwitz. The second is his identity as an Italian, almost automatically accepted at birth or in childhood, in contrast with his identity as a Jew, forced upon him first by Mussolini’s Fascist regime, and then by the Nazi concentration camp. I wish to suggest that Levi assumes the role of a ( Jewish) Italian chemist, forced into the existence of an (Italian) Jewish writer. This, however, is only the surface structure: a careful reading of Levi’s novels and short stories will reveal that the double-faced identity is inherent in his self-conception from the very beginning. His Jewish–Italian identities, as well as his chemist-writer ones, are his unique literary and personal characteristics. The paper will show that the chemist was, indeed, a storyteller, and the Italian writer was a permanent outsider, that is, a Jew. Through a presentation of Primo Levi’s consistent double existence—an Italian and a Jew, a chemist and an author, I wish to suggest that what may seem to be an unresolved conflict between two vocations and two cultural contexts is, in fact, the core of Levi’s poetics and his poetic choices. Levi tends to present himself in interviews and essays1 as a person who chose chemistry as a vocation and was forced into writing by his life experiences, especially his experiences

1 A thorough presentation of this issue can be found, for example, in Ian Thomson’s excellent biography, Primo Levi (London: Vintage, 2002). Levi himself claims, for example: “If I had not lived the Auschwitz experience, I probably would never have written anything” (Primo Levi, “Afterword,” in If This Is A Man, trans. Stuart Woolf [London: Abacus, 1979 (1958)], 397).

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in Auschwitz, and at the same time as an Italian citizen who was forced by the circumstances of World War II to define himself as a Jew. Everything that Levi wrote, as well as his biographical choices, attests to the fact that he always experienced his life as double-faced, much like the classical image of Janus, the two-faced god: he was an Italian Jew and a Poetic Chemist long before the circumstances of his life forced him into this complexity or ambivalence. Of the many complexities and ambivalent components in Levi’s life and career, I choose to focus on these two aspects: the vocational, and the cultural or ethnic. I will begin with his conscious, clearly expressed choice of chemistry as a profession.2 As many of his readers and critics have noticed, Levi writes like a scientist. “His originality lay in the way he wrote, a style he had acquired in the laboratory, where accuracy and concision were insisted upon, and lyricism and passion excluded,” says Anissimov.3 More or less along the same lines, Homer claims, “he writes about survival and Auschwitz like a scientist, specifically a chemist.”4 Many have argued whether he was more of a chemist or more of a writer. It seems to me, however, that Levi describes his choices in the clearest, if the most ambivalent way. Levi mentions his choice of chemistry as his vocation at the early age of sixteen in The Periodic Table5—the novel concerned most explicitly with his career as a chemist. We had no doubts: we would be chemists, but our expectations and hopes were quite different. Enrico asked chemistry, quite reasonably, for the tools to earn his living and have a secure life. I asked for something entirely different; for me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by 2 Levi’s choice of vocation is described specifically and at length in The Periodic Table. His rather coerced acceptance of his Judaism is mainly presented in his If This Is A Man. I use these two novels to illustrate his professional and religious or cultural stance. I shall also use several other works as sources of information and illustration. Still, Levi is clearly a novelist, not a historian, as noted even by his friend Tullio Regge, the physicist. Therefore, his statements should be treated with a grain of salt, like all literary statements. 3 Myriam Anissimov, Primo Levi: Tragedy of an Optimist, trans. Steve Cox (London: Max, 2006), 5. 4 Fredric D. Homer, Primo Levi and the Politics of Survival (Columbia–London: University of Missouri Press, 2001), p. 3. 5 Primo Levi, The Periodic Table, trans. Raymond Rosenthal (New York: Schocken Books, 1984 [1975]) (hereafter: PT).

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Already at this early stage in his career, it is obvious that Levi’s choice of chemistry is far from being a simple, practical career choice. It resembles a religious vocation, and not merely due to the comparison with Moses on Mount Sinai. The desire to understand the universe, to interpret the forces influencing the world and the people in it, is a philosophical, almost religious pretension of a career choice. Chemistry is not simply a profession, it is a key to the comprehension of the universe, and it is a sort of poetry surpassing Poetry itself. “Mendeleev’s Periodic Table, which just during those weeks we were laboriously learning to unravel, was poetry, loftier and more solemn than all the poetry we had swallowed down in liceo; and come to think of it, it even rhymed!”7 While describing Levi’s double-edged ambition, one should not forget his dry and restrained self-irony; even though he tends to attribute this irony to the partner in the dialogue he conducts at any given time, the irony is certainly his own. Whether he is confronted with the pragmatic Enrico, or is describing Sandro, who “listened to me with ironical attention, always ready to deflate me with a couple of civil and terse words when I trespassed into rhetoric,”8 the confrontation and the irony cannot be mistaken; they are Levi’s perspectives. As Angier rightly says: “His great portraits are all of other people; even (and in this he was unique) in his reports from Auschwitz.”9 Of course, these portraits of other people are inextricably linked with Levi’s own perspective and duality. Thus, it shouldn’t really surprise us that Sandro, this man of iron, whom Levi admires for his practical, nonpoetic capacities, is commemorated in the words of his nonpractical and poetic friend. Levi’s ambivalent or double-edged attitude toward chemistry, which represents matter, actual life, and toward words, which represent the spirit, or the attempt to give meaning to human existence, is especially prominent in this chapter of The Periodic Table, the chapter devoted to Sandro and entitled “Iron.” Levi enlightens Sandro about the meaning of life, about Fascism and about science, especially chemistry and physics, as the

6 7 8 9

PT, 22–23. Ibid., 41. Ibid., 42. Carol Angier, The Double Bond: Primo Levi, a Biography (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002), xv.

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“antidote” to Fascism; Sandro teaches Levi how to cope with life, with matter, how to climb a frozen mountain and “taste bear meat,”10 that is, to depend on himself and his powers in the struggle of life. Levi’s obvious love of and admiration for Sandro do not cloud his sober perspective on what happened later on; he is grateful for Sandro’s lessons, and points out that they probably contributed to his survival. Yet he dryly states: “They didn’t help Sandro, or not for long.”11 Mussolini’s Fascists shot the man of iron, and all that is left of him are Levi’s words, those words about which they were both so skeptical: Today I know that it is a hopeless task to try to dress a man in words, make him live again on the printed page, especially a man like Sandro. He was not the person you can tell stories about, nor to whom one erects monuments: he lived completely in his deeds, and when they were over nothing of him remains—nothing but words, precisely.12

This is an extreme but characteristic example of Levi’s poetics of Janus’s face. Levi always looks in at least two opposing directions, always considers the two incompatible possibilities as complementary and inevitable. This is reflected in his approach to words, rhetoric, poetry, as well as to chemistry and matter. Sandro lived in his deeds, but is commemorated in words. Levi is less practical, not so much down to earth. He aspires for significance, not merely for a profession; he is not content with scientific experiments; he needs to tell stories, and yet he is quite ironic about his own rhetoric and poetry. Much like Isaiah Berlin’s fox who would have liked to be a hedgehog, Levi may want to be a Sandro, but he is Levi: conscious of what he is, sober, a scientist, and still reaching for the stars, for the meaning of it all—a poet. As Angier repeatedly claims, Levi’s double bond may in fact be his most consistent trait, both as a writer and as a man. Thus are writing and chemistry once more brought together, through the same vision of a double movement, “up and down,” between two states or levels of energy… . In writing he moved between the two levels of his own being, his rational need for understanding, and his emotional need for contact and communication.”13 10 PT, 47. 11 Ibid., 48. 12 Ibid., 48–49. 13 Angier, Double Bond, 157.

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Unlike Angier, I do not believe in the urgent need to settle the question of writer versus chemist with a psychological keystone. It seems to me that the tension between the two is inherent to Levi’s writing and need not be resolved. Even when Levi seems to testify, reporting the details of his incarceration in Auschwitz, he is, in fact, telling a story. In one of the central chapters of If This Is A Man, “The Canto of Ulysses,”14 Levi narrates how he went with his friend, “the Pikolo,” to carry the soup pail back to his platoon. As they were walking toward the kitchen, Levi tells us, he was trying to translate the Canto of Ulysses from Dante’s Inferno into French, for his friend’s sake, as well as for his own. For Levi, this was a moment of transcendence—a moment when he succeeded in transcending the horrible inferno they were in to touch the meaning of it all, beyond the bread and the soup. He says: Perhaps, despite the wan translation and the pedestrian, rushed commentary, he has received the message, he has felt that it has to do with him, that it has to do with all men who toil, and with us in particular; and that it has to do with us two, who dare to reason of these things with the poles for the soup on our shoulders.15

The canto and the act of its translation and interpretation are so meaningful for Levi, that he comments, in a novel constantly preoccupied with the question of who retains his humanity and who loses it, who is a man: “Today I feel a man.”16 This appears to be a testimony—Levi seems to share with his reader moments from the Auschwitz inferno. The importance attributed to Dante and Ulysses reflects, according to some critics,17 Levi’s commitment to the Italian humanistic tradition in which he was raised and clings to in his harsher moments. And yet, a man who chooses to recite Dante in Auschwitz, on his way to the kitchen, a man who clings to his humanity through the words of poetry (and not through cleanliness, for example, as does the ex-sergeant Steinlauf),18 is a literary man, not just 14 Primo Levi, If This Is A Man, trans. Stuart Woolf (London: Abacus, 1979 [1958]), “The Canto of Ulysses,” 115–21 (hereafter: ITM). 15 ITM, 20. 16 Ibid. 17 A recent example that comes to mind is Alford’s book; see Fred C. Alford, After the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). The assumption, however, is a very common one in Primo Levi criticism. 18 See the chapter “Initiation” (ITM, 44–47), where Levi expresses his deeply felt respect for Steinlauf and his way of preserving human dignity, and yet states that this is not his way.

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a scientist. The subjective and poetic nature of this memoir becomes even clearer when we compare Levi’s depiction with the account of his fellow traveler. This is how the Pikolo himself, Jean Samuel, remembers these moments: “This episode in our common history has earned a prominent place in Primo’s writing; it is, however, rather surprising that I didn’t feel that way. I remember it differently… . On the other hand, another episode was deeply engraved in my mind.”19 That is, clinging to the story, to the specific significance of this canto, a significance Jean realizes that Dante could not have surmised is Levi’s choice. This is the story of Levi the writer, not necessarily the chemist, the writer identifying with Dante’s Ulysses, who keeps looking for the meaning of human existence, and not that of Jean, the pharmacist. The core of what appears to be a detached and scientific description of the Lager, the “pre-eminently gigantic biological and social experiment,”20 is in fact a novelist’s search. The accurate and detached descriptions are those of a scientist, who conscientiously describes the time, the context, and the people he meets on his way with the Pikolo; but the consistent tendency to try to make sense of it all, to cling to the human spirit, to human choices, and to poetry is actually that of the novelist. “Looking back,” speculates Angier, “he would note how much they had, in fact, crossed and combined—how chemistry had enriched his writing, and vice versa, making him see writing with a chemist’s eye, and his chemist’s labours with a literary one”21 The unique synthesis of a scientist and an author is at the core of Levi’s self-definition both before and after his internment at Auschwitz. Before Auschwitz, he perceives chemistry as lofty poetry, and writes fictional stories about researchers of matter who preceded him (the chapters “Lead” and “Mercury” in The Periodic Table); after the war, he tells about the Lager, testifies about his experiences, but preserves the concise, restrained, almost scientific presentation. A conspicuous example of Levi’s dual attitude toward his vocation or professional status can be found in his The Monkey’s Wrench.22 Throughout the novel, Levi—the narrator and minor protagonist of the work—listens to Faussone’s professional stories, stories about the bridges and other structures that he constructed all over the world; he even complains to his reader about Faussone’s 19 Jean Samuel and Jean-Marc Dreyfus, Il M’Appelait Pikolo (He Called Me Pikolo), translated into Hebrew by Miri Paz (Or Yehuda: Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir Publishing House, 2009 [2007]), 33 (my translation into English). 20 ITM, 93. 21 Angier, Double Bond, 534. 22 Primo Levi, The Monkey’s Wrench, trans. William Weaver (London: Penguin Books, 1987 [1978]).

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limited narrative talent. Only toward the end of the novel does Levi tell his friend and fictional narrator, as well as his reader, some of his own professional stories, and shares with us his inner struggle as to whether to leave chemistry and turn his writing profession into a full-time occupation. Levi explicitly struggles between his two professions in this novel. At its end, he seems ready to abandon chemistry for the sake of literature, in spite of his friend’s recommendation to hold on to matter, to the things one can look at and hold in one’s hands. We can say that Levi is a chemist-author, who pretends to be an author among chemists, and to be a chemist among authors. When he seems to write his own biography as a chemist, in the professionally entitled The Periodic Table, he also chooses to tell fictional stories, other people’s stories from which he is clearly absent, and even one or two stories that seem to have nothing to do with his own life (“Titanium,” for example). It is also important to note that most of the professional stories he chooses to tell in this novel are stories about failures, minor professional disasters: “Hydrogen” ends with the explosion of the test tube; “Potassium” ends with the curtains catching fire; the ambitious project in “Nickel” leads nowhere; the pretentious experiment in “Phosphorus” ends in complete failure. Especially prominent in this context is the chapter “Chromium,” entirely devoted to the correction of a professional error: the chemist who preceded Levi in his job has made a mistake in the chemical formula for the production of varnish during World War II; as a result, the varnish congealed into liver-like blocks. Levi’s assignment is to correct the error and “heal” the congealed “livers” back into varnish. In a process of literary sleuthing (the error lies in words, not in chemistry, in copying a formula incorrectly rather than in a scientific misunderstanding), Levi traces the origin of the mistake and corrects or heals what he calls “a pile of old sins”23 simultaneously with writing his first novel, If This Is A Man. The differentiation between the personal, the ethical, and the professional becomes impossible. Even the element that saved Levi’s life in Auschwitz is, of all elements, Cerium, about which he knows little: And finally the cerium would have liberated us, an element about which I knew next to nothing, save for that single practical application [flints for cigarette lighters], and that it belongs to the equivocal and heretical rareearth group family, and that its name has nothing to do with the Latin and Italian word for wax (cera), and it was not named after its discoverer.24 23 PT, 153. 24 PT, 145.

Primo Levi: Chemist/Writer, Italian/Jew

Levi was saved by his qualifications as a chemist, or was he? Maybe he was actually saved by his capacity to create a story out of an element he knew almost nothing about, or was he? The story’s significance is pointed out by Alberto, who is neither a chemist nor an author, who claims that “renunciation, pessimism, discouragement were abominable and culpable.”25 Primo Levi was saved. Alberto was not. The identification of the chemical substance and the knowledge of its practical application played a part in saving Levi’s life, as did the determination not to give way to pessimism and despair. The story, which in Levi’s novels always depends for its significance on his interaction with the person with whom he shares it, is as important for survival as the scientific knowledge. In other words, Levi is a chemist who almost accidentally became an author just as much as he is an author who almost accidentally chose to be a chemist. He is a man looking for meaning in matter, since Fascism made him doubt the spirit, but meaning is, of course, inextricably linked with human spirit, with man’s ability to look at the stars, and to name the element “cera” not after its discoverer but “(great modesty of the chemists of past times!) the asteroid Ceres, since the metal and the star were discovered in the same year.”26 The issue of Levi’s identity as a Jew and as an Italian or Piedmontese is as complex as that of his writer–versus–chemist identity. His own statements, as well as those of the critics, are often self-contradictory. Harrowitz says: Primo Levi’s personal position on being a Jew has been enigmatic, both for himself and for his readers and critics. He himself made differing statements on his Jewish identity: in an interview with Giuseppe Grieco, he makes it clear that he had a religious upbringing and that he has a Jewish identity that he has “no intention of discarding”; but elsewhere he relegates Jewish identity to a very small element of his overall identity and plays down the strength of his religious education.27

Anissimov points out Levi’s double commitment, to his Jewish as well as to his Italian roots, by quoting him: On the occasion of the centenary of our synagogue … we, the Jewish community of Turin, have decided just this once to abandon our traditional 25 PT, 142. 26 PT, 145. 27 Nancy Harrowitz, “Primo Levi’s Jewish Identity,” in Primo Levi, ed. Robert S. C. Gordon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 17–31. (The quote appears on 17.)

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“The text,” claims Anissimov, “testifies to Levi’s double commitment—to his Jewish origins and to the region and city of his birth—seen not as a conflict of allegiance but as a positive integration of diverse influences.”28 The first chapter of The Periodic Table recounts the history of Primo Levi’s ancestors. He labels them as inert gases. They bear curious Greek names of erudite derivation that mean “the New,” “the Hidden,” “the Inactive,” and “The Alien.”29 Levi’s characterization of the inert gases at the beginning of this chapter contradicts the explicit claims he makes in it. The explicit claim made here tends to be that Levi is only incidentally Jewish, that being a Jew means very little to him. The opening sentence of the chapter, however, claims that he belongs to the family of inert gases, which do not react with their environment, and are alien, hidden, and new, that is, are unlike all the others. “They were never much loved or much hated; stories of unusual persecutions have not been handed down,” claims Levi.30 And yet, “a wall of suspicion, of undefined hostility and mockery, must have kept them substantially separated from the rest of the population.”31 On the one hand, Levi belittles the importance of Gentile hostility, points out that the mockery was “without malice,”32 and, as we will see later on, claims that being a Jew meant little to him; on the other hand, he connects that same mockery to the SS’s vilifying use of prayer shawls as underwear. The attitude of Levi’s father to prosciutto probably sums up the son’s relationship with Judaism at this particular stage of his life: he buys the nonkosher ham, checks the price with his logarithmic ruler (which makes him famous among the butchers), but feels ill at ease about eating it: Not that he purchased this last item with a carefree heart: superstitious rather than religious, he felt ill at ease at breaking the kasherut rules, but he liked prosciutto so much that, faced with the temptation of a shop 28 Anissimov, Primo Levi, 6–7. 29 PT, 3. 30 PT, 4. 31 PT, 4­–5. 32 Ibid.

Primo Levi: Chemist/Writer, Italian/Jew window, he yielded every time, sighing, cursing under his breath, and watching me out of the corner of his eye, as if he feared my judgment or hoped for my complicity.33

It would seem appropriate to sum up Levi’s perception of his being Jewish at that stage of his life in his own words: In truth, until precisely those months it had not meant much to me that I was a Jew: within myself, and in my contacts with my Christian friends, I had always considered my origin as an almost negligible but curious fact, a small amusing anomaly, like having a crooked nose or freckles; a Jew is somebody who at Christmas does not have a tree, who should not eat salami but eats it all the same, who learns a bit of Hebrew at thirteen and then has forgotten it.34

This apologetic–evasive definition of Judaism is consistent with Levi’s selfdefinition as an Italian, maybe a Piedmontese Italian. It may be worthwhile noting that this definition of Judaism is a dual one. On the one hand, being a Jew is a marginal quality, like a crooked nose (the stereotypical facial feature of Jews) or freckles (quite an insignificant characteristic); on the other, Gentiles mock Jews, mockery that consciously or unconsciously has something to do with the prayer shawl, and it is ill-advised to mention Christ or the Madonna, since “the myth of the God-killing people dies hard.”35 Unlike the dual attitude toward the importance of being a Jew in everyday life, a duality that can be discerned from the first chapter on, Levi’s attitude toward the significance of Judaism is sharply crystallized only with the rise of Fascism in Italy. As a result of the publication of the racist magazine Defense of the Race, the application of the Race Laws in Italy, and with prevalent public discussion of purity and impurity, “I had begun to be proud of being impure,” Levi writes.36 His attitude toward his Judaism turns more serious, but the change does not originate in a serious stance concerning religion or origin, but rather in a struggle against Fascism’s concept of purity. If Judaism is considered impure, Levi finds a chemical reason for impurity to be essential for life: “I am the 33 34 35 36

PT, 19. PT, 35­­–36. PT, 11. PT, 35.

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impurity that makes zinc react, I am the grain of salt or mustard.”37 The inert, indifferent gases are here almost paradoxically turned into the accelerators of action, into the grain essential for the chemical reactions that enable life. One must keep in mind that, for Levi, being Jewish never means believing in God: “Today I think that if for no other reason than that an Auschwitz existed, no one in our age should speak of Providence.”38 Harrowitz explains: “What is being set up here [in the first chapter of The Periodic Table], under the cover of anecdote, is a working through of the tensions and difficulties his integrated, secular but not assimilated Jewish identity brings with it.”39 Not unlike his attitude toward chemistry, Levi’s attitude toward Judaism remains ambivalent. Not even Fascism can turn Levi into a Jew by choice. This is how Levi describes his “admission” of being a Jew when the partisan group he belonged to was taken prisoner by Mussolini’s troops: He told me (probably bluffing) that he knew I was a Jew, but that it was good for me: I was either a Jew or a partisan: if a partisan, he would put me against the wall; if a Jew, fine, there was a collection camp at Carpi, they were not bloody butchers, and I would remain there until the final victory. I admitted to being a Jew: partly because I was tired, partly out of an irrational digging in of pride, but I absolutely did not believe in his words.40

Levi “admits” to being a Jew almost in the same manner he chooses to be proud of his “impurity”: out of pride, out of being tired, out of a hope instantly dismissed, since he doesn’t believe the promises of his captor, and most of all out of near-perfect ambivalence. He is defined as a Jew, and thus he wearily chooses to define himself as one. In other words, Italy’s Fascist regime may be the trigger that highlights Levi’s consciousness of his being different, “the other,” but the “otherness” has always been there. It may very well be true, as Anissimov says, that at the camp in Fossoli it “was the first time that Primo Levi had found himself immersed— by force and under stressful circumstances—in an exclusively Jewish world,”41 but his sense of being outside the group, observing it, was established already in Turin. We should also notice that this otherness is described in terms of 37 Ibid. 38 ITM, 163–64. 39 Harrowitz, “Primo Levi’s Jewish Identity,” 25. 40 PT, 134. 41 Anissimov, Primo Levi, 95.

Primo Levi: Chemist/Writer, Italian/Jew

playacting—I play the role of the Jew out of a misplaced and irrational pride. This aspect of playacting or the temporary undertaking of a role is especially conspicuous in the short story “Lilith.”42 A short survey of this exquisite story may serve as a concluding illustration of Levi’s double Janus face: the chemist and the author, the Italian and the Jew. The story “Lilith” takes place in Auschwitz, during an enforced break in the forced labor. The rain turns the ground into mud, and forces the guards to call a break in the hard labor. During the short respite, Levi enjoys a conversation with “Tischler,” who tells him Lilith’s story. The story Levi repeats to his readers is a variation on the original kabbalistic story; however, it is first and foremost a story. Two aspects of this story are highlighted and deserve our attention: the narrative aspect and the religious or Jewish one. Levi, the story’s narrator, is a minor character in it, or, more specifically, he is the audience. The main character is Tischler, who tells the story, while Levi is relegated to the marginal role of listener. As Levi himself testifies: “It is inexplicable that fate has chosen an unbeliever to repeat this pious and impious tale, woven of poetry, ignorance, daring acumen, and the unassuageable sadness that grows on the ruins of lost civilizations.”43 This ending of the story by a first-person narrator almost explicitly states that Levi is the narrator, yet he was arbitrarily chosen to tell the story; he is the minor character, yet, but for his narration, the story would have been lost among the ruins of Polish Judaism; he is an unbeliever, yet he is the one who tells this pious (and impious) story. Levi’s ambivalent attitude toward his position as the preserver and narrator of Jewish culture is reflected analogically in his attitude toward religion and Judaism. On the one hand, he presents himself as the unbeliever, the epicurean; on the other, he points out that this is merely a role he undertakes. This is Levi’s way of putting it: “A typical situation was developing, and a game that I liked: the dispute between the pious man and the unbeliever who is by definition ignorant and whom the adversary forces to gnash his teeth by showing him his error. I accepted my role and answered with the required insolence.”44 And this is how Levi makes Tischler put it: “I’ll tell you a few of them [of Lilith’s stories], because … today my role is to tell and believe; you are the unbeliever today.”45

42 Primo Levi, “Lilith,” in Moments of Reprieve, trans. Ruth Feldman (London: Abacus, 1987 [1981]), 35–45. 43 “Lilith,” 45. 44 “Lilith,” 40, my emphases in italics. 45 “Lilith,” 41.

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That is, Levi and Tischler share the roles of narrator, pious believer, and Epicurean. Tischler admits to being an author, adding to the stories he tells, while Levi implicitly admits that the story may not be strictly autobiographical. Tischler and Levi present piousness and Epicureanism, the preservation of tradition and its mockery as roles chosen by participants in a play. If the traditional Janus has two faces, it seems that Levi is more like the rarer Janus in this story and context. He is the one with four faces, looking at all four corners of the compass— he is both an author and a scientist, accurately testifying to his experiences; and he is both an unbeliever and a keeper or preserver of the lost Jewish culture. Levi’s Janus face is a reflection of his poetics,47 not necessarily of the arbitrary events of his biography. Of course, had his life turned out differently, the content of his writing might have been different. And yet, the ambivalence and the dualities characterize his poetics, the many aspects of his writing, literary as well as biographical. Just as the end of The Monkey’s Wrench leaves Levi’s readers uncertain about his choice in the matter of chemistry versus literature, so the end of If Not Now, When?48 presents us with a dual position on the issue of Zionism. At the end of The Monkey’s Wrench, Faussone says: So you really want to shut up the shop? Excuse me for saying so, but if I was in your shoes, I’d give it some careful thought. I tell you, doing things you can touch with your hands has an advantage: you can make comparisons and understand how much you’re worth. You make a mistake, you correct it, and next time you don’t make it. But you’re older than me, and maybe you’ve already seen enough things in your life.49

46 “Lilith,” 42. 47 Poetics, as I use the term, means the entire array of characteristic choices made by an author in terms of plot, character, language, as well as central themes. See Smadar Shiffman, The Author’s Stamp [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz Ha-Meuchad, 1999). 48 Primo Levi, If Not Now, When?, trans. William Weaver (London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2000 [1982]). 49 Levi, If Not Now, When?, 171.

Primo Levi: Chemist/Writer, Italian/Jew

The pragmatic advice is given by the man Levi describes as a good craftsman or professional, but not a very talented narrator. And then again, he has some reservations concerning his own advice (“maybe you’ve seen enough things”). The same duality characterizes Levi’s attitude toward Zionism. If Not Now, When? is Levi’s only novel that doesn’t present itself as autobiographical. Whereas in all his other novels Levi appears in his own name, and the events can be traced to his biography, in this novel an omniscient narrator describes a group of Jewish partisans making its way across German-occupied Russia and Poland during World War II. Most of the partisans moving west decide to reach Italy, in the hope of immigrating to Israel. Apparently, since the novel is clearly nonautobiographical, Levi lets himself express an explicit and nonambivalent position in favor of a Jewish national home in Israel. And yet, even in this novel, Levi’s position is more complicated than it appears to be. The decision to immigrate to Israel is made by those who have lost their homes in Europe. The Russian and Polish Jews do not have or perceive another possibility. There is, however, the decision made by Dov, the Jewish partisan whose home is in Siberia: Dov decides to go back home. He says he will go with his friends and fight alongside them as long as he is needed, but with the war over, he intends to go back home, since his house probably stands as he has left it, and the Siberians neither call you “a Yid” nor make you praise Stalin. Dov, one of the most impressive protagonists in a novel that glorifies Jewish resistance, is allowed to go “back home,” since he has one, as is the French Jewish physician liberated by the group from a Nazi camp. The Jews and the Communists our protagonists meet in Italy completely fail to understand their Zionism and their deep commitment to a new national home. As Levi himself was to say, when Israeli fellow survivors criticized his position regarding the Lebanon war of 1982: “He was a Jew, but before that he was a democrat.”50 Levi testifies through fiction, and his fiction includes explicit autobiographical elements. His fiction pretends to be “authentic” testimony, yet it is clearly and precisely edited, presented to its readers as literature and is very much conscious of being a work of art. Most of the novels and short stories are narrated in the first person, yet the narrator almost always is a witness, foregrounding everyone but himself. The subject matter of Levi’s fiction is dramatic and charged with meaning, yet it is told with great restraint, somewhat like a scientific report. Levi’s texts are concerned with the significance-loaded issues of morality, humanity, and the meaning of existence after Auschwitz, and yet 50 Angier, Double Bond, 628.

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they insist on complex and multifaceted answers to the queries they present, avoiding unequivocal solutions. Cheyette presents this duality as something always on the verge of breaking down: As Marco Belpoliti has rightly argued, Primo Levi’s most consistent self-image in his interviews was as a “hybrid” or “centaur” which “does not only represent the presence of opposites, but also … an unstable union destined to break down.” This creative instability can be found in Levi’s complex identity as chemist and writer, witness and writer, Jew and Italian.51

Levi’s fiction clearly presents his hybridity as stable, rather than as being on the point of breaking down: it is the multifaceted way he sees and presents life, science, literature, and commitment. Duality and ambivalence are at the core of Levi’s literary essence, just as he considers them the core of humanity. “Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.”52

51 Bryan Cheyette, “Appropriating Primo Levi,” in Primo Levi, ed. Robert S. C. Gordon (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007), 67–85. (The quote appears on page 67.) 52 PT, 9.

CHAPTER 22

Jewish Educational Proposals in Nineteenthand Twentieth-Century Florence SILVIA GUETTA

INTRODUCTION The variety of institutions for Jewish children in several Italian communities, from the early nineteenth century on, affirms the awareness and interest in social and pedagogical changes taking place at that time. Deep social, economic, and institutional changes were beginning to be perceived, not only by the moderate Italian intellectuals, but also by the representatives of some Jewish communities which, after the advent of Napoleon, began “to open the ghetto’s doors” by introducing the new ideas and behaviors circulating in those years. In some cases, new institutions were founded based on these ideas. Attention to early education was not limited to the opening of primary schools for the education of young Jewish Italians; it led to the creation of other institutions, such as orphanages, kindergartens, arts and crafts schools, and boarding schools—which had different characteristics from charitable institutions. Boarding schools were established to give rich Jewish families the opportunity to enroll their children in a school where it was possible to learn Jewish and civil disciplines, and where the level of teaching was higher than that in public and existing Jewish schools. Moreover, students from small cities and towns that did not have Jewish schools attended these boarding schools.

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The “Israelite University” of Florence,1 and a similar one in Livorno, consistently showed a foundational interest in the diffusion of knowledge and action on behalf of the most disadvantaged children. These communities were part of the moderate Tuscan milieu within the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and followed the models already present in the Lombardy region. In the 1830s, after the region achieved economic recovery, and social progress began to be made, the need was acknowledged for institutional settings for children whose parents were working outside the home from morning to late evening. These “Custody Rooms” not only gave assistance to abandoned children, but also gradually became places where young children of working parents received their first elements of education. The Custody Rooms were founded on the educational model of Ferrante Aporti (1791–1858), who believed it was necessary for education to be for all, in particular for people historically excluded from any kind of education and instruction.

KINDERGARTEN In 1836, the Florentine Israelite University decided to offer the service of a kindergarten to the Jewish community. Its first “Regulation for the School of Poor Jewish Children” stated: “The School will host those children who are aged from three to no more than six, and who belong to the disadvantaged class of the Jewish Community of Florence.”2 This school essentially targeted the deprived children in the Jewish community, just as other nineteenthcentury community institutions were earmarked for deprived children. The philanthropic nature of the Jewish community’s kindergarten lasted until the first decades of the twentieth century. In some cases, this created problems of attendance. Since these schools were intended to respond to the social and educational needs of the poorest among the Jewish community, the middle class and affluent families perceived them as places for the excluded and marginalized. It was not important that these schools were teaching Jewish 1 In the history of Italian Jewry, congregations and institutes have had many typologies and names. One of these was the “Jewish University” or, more precisely, the “Israelite University.” This name was given after the Rattazzi Law of 1857, which set out the new system for the Jewish congregation in the reign of Savoy. A. Milano, Storia degli Ebrei in Italia (Torino: Einaudi, 1963); G. Disegni, Ebraismo e libertà religiosa in Italia. Dal diritto all’uguaglianza al diritto alla diversità (Torino: Einaudi, 1983). 2 ACEF (Archivio della Comunità Ebraica di Firenze/Archive of the Jewish Community of Florence), B.44.1, fasc.1.

Jewish Educational Proposals

knowledge; what was perceived as their main characteristic was that they were dedicated to poor children. In the 1840s, after emancipation, most families preferred to send their children to schools where they could have meaningful social interaction with children from better social environments. The first call for funds and support for the establishment of the kindergarten was made in 1833, and an official request for children’s education was drafted in 1835.3 The idea of creating this school, which recalled some of the characteristics of Aporti’s model, was based on the need to educate poor children from their earliest years to prevent future deviance and delinquency. The school was expected to teach the children hygiene and to give them regular and sufficient meals. There was a doctor in service, in order to assess the children’s health periodically. It is worth noting that the first tuition-free Jewish school had been founded in Berlin half a century earlier.4 The educational activities of the school included religious orientation, such as encouragement to say blessings and learn the principles of a good moral and religious education through morality tales and religious history. They also learned basic elements of reading and writing Italian and Hebrew, anatomy, math, and natural history, “especially about the more frequently observed entities in their environment.”5 While proposing new elements of knowledge to children, teachers had to take into consideration the age of the children and their mental abilities and concentration skills. Teachers stimulated children’s attention by varying daily activities, with singing classes, gym, and manual work.6 The regular school functioning was under the responsibility of the director (usually a woman) who, according to the Regulation, had several tasks: opening, cleaning, and being in charge of the school premises, as well as teaching and organizing the classes. A deputy director and a caretaker helped the director, executing her orders and coordinating the work with her. Children attended the school all year around—except for Saturdays and the Jewish holidays. The school was open from 9:00/9:30 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. The option of remaining at school so late was because many parents worked

3 Ibid. 4 S. Feiner and C. Noar, The Jewish Enlightenment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). 5 ACEF, B.44.1, fasc. 1. 6 G. Cassuto, “Una visita all’Asilo Infantile Israelitico di Firenze,” La Settimana Israelitica 2, no. 13 ( January 1911).

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long hours and came home late at night. These parents were often unable to give their children meals. The teachers, director, and benefactors believed that keeping the children in the Custody Room would avoid leaving them to wander the streets alone at night. At the beginning, the school admitted only boys, but after only two years, in December 1838, girls were also admitted. Recess was separate for girls and boys.7 Education for females was one of the issues being extensively debated and undergoing significant changes in Italy at this time, both in Jewish education and in the wider society.8 Other amendments were introduced into the original Regulation: namely, the maximum age until which students could stay at the school was raised to seven and then to nine, if necessary. The “Regulation for the Jewish Kindergarten in Florence,” approved in 1864, specified (Article 52) that: “children leave the kindergarten at the age of eight, if their educational level does not give them access to the higher school cycle earlier. Under particular circumstances, they can remain until older.”9 The estimated attendance in the first year was between twenty-two to twenty-five pupils. Over the years that followed, attendance increased: “The number of children is constantly increasing. Almost all of them are in good health, their moral qualities benefit from new learning in comparison to the past. They care about the school so much that, when they have to leave it because they have grown up, it makes them cry.”10 The school later introduced the first classes of primary school. It was a unique situation, as Florentine Jewish children were given the opportunity to attend the first year of primary school either in Jewish primary schools or in the Jewish kindergarten, then to start regular primary school in the second year. The Statute of the Jewish Kindergarten of 1891 gives these details: A regular first year of primary school has been established at the kindergarten, in compliance with the rules of Art. 27 of the Regulation approved by Royal Law, 16 February 1888. In this first year of primary school, carried out by a teacher with a regular license, besides accepting children from six to seven, either males or females, not only the didactic programs

7 ACEF B.44.1, fasc. 2. 8 M. Agnesi, R. Messbarger, and P. Findlen, The Contest for Knowledge: Debates Over Women’s Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005). 9 ACEF, B.44.1. 10 ACEF, B.44.1, fasc. 3.

Jewish Educational Proposals of the Kingdom’s schools will be carried out, but children will also learn to read in Hebrew.11

In 1919, the option to attend the first year of primary school at the kindergarten was abolished. On Jewish holidays, the Florentine kindergarten organized parties for the children, with the active participation of parents, relatives, and older children. Younger students performed songs, gym routines, and small works of art were exhibited. Adriana Genazzani’s report, published in 1920 in Israel dei Ragazzi, describes these holidays: There is nothing nicer and more charitable than a party for small children in a Jewish school. The school is Talmud Torà of Florence and the children participating are young children of the kindergarten and the first year of primary school. Imagine a quantity of white and blue, of little rosy faces and anxious eyes full of joy and laughter: here are the little artists, who performed without any hesitation to a wide public in the crowded school room.12

SCHOOLS During the political transformation of post-Napoleonic Europe and of post-Restoration, the schools of the Italian preunification states began to become “popular.” The need to educate all social classes became increasingly clear, because that would facilitate progress and economic development. The new social policies of the preunification central and northern Italian states began to design a public education system and to fight illiteracy. However, it should be remembered that the educational policies of the various states depended on the regimes that ruled them. For example, the part of the peninsula subject to the control of the Austrian Empire enjoyed “a primary school system minutely regulated, entrusted to the municipalities of discrete administrative efficiency and educational models defined even if questionable.”13 Despite the different historical traditions and policies carried out to overcome the control of the 11 ACEF, annex B.42.1, Jewish Kindergarten Statute. 12 A. Genazzani, “Una festa di bambini al Talmud Torà di Firenze,” Israel Dei Ragazzi, 24 (4 Tevet 5681/December 15, 1920): 3. 13 G. Cives (a cura di), “La scuola italiana dall’Unità ai nostri giorni,” La Nuova Italia (Florence, 1990): 56.

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Roman Catholic Church over education and instruction, the school increasingly represented the key place for the training of future citizens.14 At this time, the literacy rate among the Jews (particularly among males) was relatively high due to their religious education, which emphasized the reading of holy texts. In this way, Jewish education facilitated the entry into secular education.15 New ideas in education led to changes in the fields of teaching and teacher training.16 The Casati Law of 1859 (enacted under the Kingdom of Savoy at a delicate moment of political transition in the middle of the War of Independence and extended to the annexed provinces in 1860–61) made school compulsory for the first two years of elementary school. The proposal made school free (although this was largely disregarded) and ensured freedom of teaching. This law, a cornerstone of the Italian educational system, unavoidably involved the relationships with and the structures of minorities’ educational systems, especially those of religious minorities in the Piedmont region and subsequently in the annexed provinces. This law gave a decisive incentive to the education of the masses, giving those who had lived in social exclusion the first real chance to feel equal to others and have access to the same social opportunities. For the Jewish world, this trend of educational and scholastic proposals meant both a great opportunity and a new social challenge. The need to make a change within the communities’ educational institutions was supported also by regulatory requirements and external policies, oriented toward processes of secularization and the system of state control.17 A debate ensued with regard to the school, which immediately shed light on the most critical aspects of the matter. A relatively widespread opinion expressed the danger of weakening training opportunities offered by the community in favor of the public school and fears that the enrollment of young people in municipal schools would merely confirm 14 One example is the Boncompagni Law of 1848. In the Kingdom of Savoy, the process of “secularization of the school started through the move of the administration of public education to the ‘Directorate of the Ministry of State in charge of that department’ and on its dependence the primary schools and upper primary schools entrusted to the Municipalities,” ibid., 5. 15 D. Aberbach, The European Jews, Patriotism and the Liberal State, 1789–1939: A Study of Literature and Social Psychology (London: Routledge, 2012). 16 The promulgation of the Boncompagni Law (1848) and the Casati Law (1959) defined and formalized training courses for primary school teachers, launching the amendments that can be traced to the “Normal School” for men and women for a period of three years. 17 In 1848, the Boncompagni Law of the Kingdom of Savoy had already taken steps to regulate the passages of the schools of all levels, from the control of the ecclesiastical authority to the ministerial authority. This step sanctioned the state’s new role in educational policies and control of knowledge.

Jewish Educational Proposals

what the emancipation progress was defining: the reduction of the Jewish tradition to mere religion. There was awareness of the fact that for much of non-Jewish society, the “emancipation” of the Jews was contingent on reeducation, which would lead to their assimilation into European society. In some places (such as France), the government attempted to close unlicensed Jewish schools. In others (such as England), public schools required attendance at Christian religious services. Jewish students were faced with the choice of attending or asking to be excused, which marked them as “outsiders.”18 Systems of vocational schools for Jewish youth were established in Russia and Lithuania.19 By virtue of this awareness, several possible solutions were defined: maintain and support the Jewish school for the training of young people; strengthen and support Jewish family education; give women and especially mothers greater responsibilities and involvement; and create larger Jewish community centers in economically attractive urban centers, where communal children’s educational choices were easier to organize. Of an entirely different opinion were those who perceived this moment of freedom and equality of rights as a concrete possibility to enroll their children in public schools and be able to share an equal educational opportunity—just like the younger generations from all social and cultural backgrounds of the country. Many Jewish parents maintained that only by being able to attend popular schools, with their moral, physical, and intellectual education, could their children really learn and practice the meaning of coexistence and of social equality, without any class division or religious difference. Many Jewish families chose the public school, especially those who were sufficiently affluent not to send their children to “welfare and charity” community schools. The Jewish schools, despite having undergone an internal transformation of adapting curricula to the ministerial demands, did not exercise a strong attraction because they were of low quality and had poor social status. Within a few years, they remained popular only among the children of poor families. For most of the nineteenth century, the choices made by families to facilitate the integration of their children remained in the shadows and did not seem to worry those in charge of the community policies and Judaism in general. 18 J. Frankel and S. J. Zipperstein, Assimilation and Community: The Jews in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).  19 M. Zalkin, Modernizing Jewish Education in Nineteenth Century Eastern Europe: The School as the Shrine of the Jewish Enlightenment (Leiden: Brill, 2016).

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We must therefore wait until the first decades of the twentieth century to see a maturation of the awareness of the need to invest community resources in the field of education and the actualization of the training of the young. The first real participatory consultation on the situation of the educational institutions in the Italian Jewish communities was proposed during a conference held in Florence in 1911.20 A committee, made up of Umberto Cassuto, Elia Samuele Artom, and Alfonso Pacifici,21 was formed during the congress in order to promote an investigation and study of the condition of the Jewish schools in Italy. The report, presented the following year by Artom at the Second Congress of the Youth, showed for the first time (although with some inaccuracy), the condition of Jewish education in Italy. Since the publication of the investigation in an Israelite journal, the researchers showed that out of a Jewish population of 40,000, about 1,600 students attended Jewish schools. It was calculated that about 4 percent attended community educational institutions, well below the ratio of the previous decade, which had been about 10 percent.

SCHOOL OF ARTS AND CRAFTS During the first decades of the nineteenth century, the establishment of a School of Arts and Crafts for young males and females of the Florentine community was of great interest from a vocational point of view. This kind of school was a new initiative in Italy, and there were only a few similar initiatives in other countries. Other organizations, like the Evangelical Church, established this kind of institution in Florence only at the end of the nineteenth century.22 In some other European countries, Jewish students found it difficult to find craftsmen willing to accept them as apprentices, and they were limited to certain traditionally Jewish vocations.23 Around 1826, after the creation of a Philanthropic Society of Arts and Crafts, a school proposal was presented, in which guidelines and specific reg 20 E. S. Artom, La scuola ebraica in Italia: relazione letta al 2. Convegno giovanile ebraico, Torino 24 dicembre 1912 (Florence: Tip. Giuntina, 1913); S. Guetta, “La scuola ebraica dall’emancipazione alla riforma Gentile,” op. cit. 21 Cassuto, Artom, and Pacifici were part of an active group of students who attended courses at the Rabbinic College in Florence, organized by Rabbi Margulies, in around 1910. These three men were important figures in Italian Judaism in the 1900s. M. Molinari, Ebrei in Italia, un problema di identità, 1870–1938 (Florence: Giuntina, 1991). 22 Andrea Mannucci, Educazione e scuola protestante (Florence: Luciano Manzuoli Editore, 1989), 222–26. 23 J. Frankel and S. J. Zipperstein, Assimilation and Community.

Jewish Educational Proposals

ulations for the future institution were indicated. The project was sent to the representatives of the Israelite University, which had requested it. Although interest in the realization of the school had been shown since the beginning, the school opened only in 1836. Reading that original document allows us to understand how the foundation of the school took into account the evolution of orientations and ideas in the educational environment of those years. The stated purpose of the institution was to establish: a happy and wished-for regeneration for those poor among our co-religious, who are threatened to be corrupted and damaged by laziness. When people are abandoned to themselves, laziness pushes them to practice shameful deeds that degrades them among all nations and marks them with the sign of misery and humiliation. The progress of universal education, not only in the civilized world but also in areas still experiencing ignorance and superstition, must be an object of true joy for all friends of Humanity… . An illuminated Government, which considers that realizing the happiness of its people is its best patrimony, will encourage our initiative.24

The need to provide education for the poorest and most disadvantaged classes, in order to allow them to progress beyond a world supported by charity and alms, was certainly a positive characteristic of the Jewish approach toward this kind of issue. The intention of founding this new institution reveals a modern and progressive idea of education, far from the reactionary–conservatory forms that were widespread during the years of the Restoration. The Florentine School of Arts and Crafts was linked directly to the other educational institutions of the Israelite University. It did not offer early education, as this was already taken care of by the kindergarten and the Jewish primary schools. Rather, it placed the students directly in workshops, where they would learn an art or craft easily and practically. The commission in charge of elaborating a report on the foundation of a new school clearly understood the need to take into account the families’ potential negative attitudes or problems regarding their children’s regular attendance at this school. Learning a specific trade meant avoiding the risk of prematurely having to take over their fathers’ businesses and selling their work in the street. In the new institution, children 24 ACEF, B.40.1.

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invested their time and energy in learning a trade that would be a source of income in the near future. Therefore, another purpose of the institution was “to facilitate the placement of children in the workshops and factories by giving appropriate advice, and to distribute financial support to their less lucky parents and families.”25 In addition to professional training, the Philanthropic Society of Arts and Crafts also proposed that during the factories’ and workshops’ closure on Christian holidays, students could be assembled in a school to advance their studies of Italian grammar, linear design, and practical geometry, “because these are things that go closely with the arts, and that good craftsmen cannot do without.”26 During the Jewish holidays, trainees were obliged to attend “one or two hours of letters, of morals, and of domestic and social virtues.”27 The school admitted students after a selection process that examined their families’ motivations and economic situations. Once accepted into the institute, students were overseen by inspectors, who were specifically in charge of supervising students’ conduct and relations with the teachers. Students’ attendance was the result of collaboration between the school and the family, as “it is the relatives’ responsibility, more than others, to transmit those religious feelings to their children, in favor of which the Philanthropic Society gives its protection to the trainees.”28 According to Article 10 of the Regulation, attached to the report presented to the committee of the Israelite University, trainees were obliged to present a monthly certificate of good conduct, religious principles, and good health, signed by one of the inspectors. Article 11 requested demonstration of basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic, although this applied only to male students. These allowed the family to receive the financial support determined by the directors. The Philanthropic Society fixed the terms of the monthly stipend for trainees of both sexes depending on their age. Ten percent of this stipend was retained to create a protection fund and a fund for the youngsters’ future, to provide them with the necessary tools of the trade they were learning. An annual general meeting held each November was established to monitor the activity of the institution and the students’ progress. At this meeting, 25 26 27 28

ACEF, B.40.1. ACEF, B.40.1. ACEF, B.40.1. ACEF, B.40.1.

Jewish Educational Proposals

awards were distributed to trainees who had distinguished themselves during the year for their good conduct or progress in learning their trade. Although the idea of creating this kind of school in the Jewish community appeared to be of interest to many people, the project was delayed for some years due to a debate about what the appropriate age should be to start learning a trade. Article 9 of the first Regulation of 1826 maintains that “trainers will not benefit from financial support unless aged ten, or if older than 16.”29 The age of ten was chosen as the minimum age most likely because the student would have completed the primary school course of Talmud Torah or kindergarten. As there was no official age to start mandatory education, children began attending Jewish primary school at the age their parents considered appropriate. Some thought that the age of ten was too young to burden a child with the heavy responsibility resulting from work. According to this view, admission to the training schools for boys would be possible only if they were older than thirteen. Girls could not be younger than twelve, and they were not allowed to go to Jewish teachers living outside the “delimited area or annexed streets.” When the school opened in May 1836, Article 2 of its regulations stated: “males should not be younger than ten years old, and not older than fifteen, while females not younger than eight and not older than thirteen.”30 The new regulation clearly stated that the workshops attended by students had to be inside the Jewish neighborhood, or very close to it. When the school opened, the admission age was set at thirteen for boys and twelve for girls, which had been identified as the most socially appropriate ages. One should note that this corresponds to the ages at which Jewish youth come to maturity according to the religious tradition. We may assume that the choice was dictated by the fact that youth could work outside the community’s environment once they had achieved religious maturity, while still respecting their duties in the Jewish tradition such as, for example, by keeping the Sabbath. Nonetheless, it is not clear what the children did in the intermediate years between primary school and vocational school. The maximum age of attendance was raised to twenty years. At the outset, there were about fifty students at the school. In addition to the crafts skills taught, male students were offered classes in physical and moral education, geometrical design, and Jewish religious studies (Talmud Torah). Female students attended classes in reading, writing, arithmetic, and Jewish 29 ACEF, B.40.1. 30 ACEF, B.40.1.

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studies. The inclusion of these courses was possible thanks to a break of two hours in the daily work schedule, one of which was dedicated to the lessons and another to lunch, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. Articles 8, 9, and 10 in the Regulation of 1836 give us an idea of the organization: Males and females are divided into classes and each class will have its own teacher; for male education there will be a male teacher in charge of the two classes of Carpenter and Cabinetmaker; Turner; Shoemaker; Tailor; and Upholsterer. For female education, there were courses such as Dressmaker; Maidservant’s Cap Maker; Hand-Sewn Whites; and Embroidery. After careful attention was given to both the male and female students, the most appropriate trade would be assigned to him/her, independently from those indicated in the aforementioned article; like Bookbinder, Umbrella Maker, Goldsmith, Silversmith, and others; the Commission would have to deal with it separately, when having to execute it.31

This school organization was modified in 1850, when the need for integration into public life was better perceived. The School of Arts and Crafts, also called the Vocational School, reinforced its tools to achieve the “regeneration of the poor Jew.” It created the “Jewish worker,” a physically strong man, also strong in spirit, simple in wishes and aspirations, but rich in ideals and used to the culture, far from the average working people around: in other terms, the “good worker, the good Jew.”32 By confirming the placement of students as trainees at crafts workshops, the Vocational School underlined the need to send children to work places where they would be permitted to respect the Sabbath and Jewish holidays. The School of Arts and Crafts, like the kindergarten, organized annual parties to distribute awards to the best students. During these ceremonies, which were attended by the general public, the Executive Committee gave speeches about the school’s achievements, its successes, and the students’ attendance. But problems concerning the school were not concealed, as seen in this speech made by Attorney Aristide Nissim, president of the school, in 1915. The institution,

31 ACEF, B.40.1. 32 “Questioni Comunali. Le Scuole professionali Ebraiche,” La Settimana Israelitica 49 (December 4, 1914): 2.

Jewish Educational Proposals created for the purpose of orienting boys and girls toward the exercise of a trade or craft, embodied the aim of the honorable founders and benefactors in having the students respect Saturdays, which, until some years ago, fully corresponded to their wishes, with several students distinguishing themselves. Nowadays, however, while the female section is large in number and gives good results, the male section, with a few exceptions, does not completely correspond to the Board’s aim, as the students’ registrations are decreasing. This situation does not depend on the Committee, or on a lack of statute dispositions, or on a lack of internal teaching, but it depends on a lack of trust on the parents’ part, who wrongly think that damage may be caused by the absence from work on Saturdays. The Jewish feeling must be awoken effectively to convince them that it is possible to achieve the purpose of life, while maintaining ourselves as good observant Jews.33

The intention was to prevent parents from prohibiting their sons and daughters from attending the school due to a perception that the only work available to them was as peddlers, and subsequently taking advantage of their unstable condition and constantly begging for money from the community. The supporters of these schools considered charity to be “the moral and material elevation of the poor, achieved in a rational and modern way. Begging is not useful to elevating the poor, even when it does not facilitate laziness, it can never provide long-term relief. It is necessary to make a person feel the importance of work and to give him or her a job, thus offering a safe way to seriously uplift one’s own condition.”34

33 Notizie in Il Vessillo Israelitico 2 ( January 31, 1915), 46. 34 “Per l’educazione e l’avvenire del proletariato ebraico,” Il Vessillo Israelitico 6 ( June 1910): 257–58.

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Index A Jerusalemite’s Tale, 141 Aaron Berekhiah of Modena, 163, 168 Ma‘avar Yabbok, 163 Siddur Ashmoret ha-Boker, 163 Aba, R., 80 Abraham (Abram), 7, 8, 91, 95, 136–137, 250, 260–261, 318, 375 Abraam, Mancip, 194 Abrahmson, S., 67 Abukaya, Yaakov, 316 Addis Abeba, 340, 342 Adelkind, Cornelius, 229 Adelkind, Daniel, 229 Adventures of Alexander of Macedon, The, 141 Aeneas, 140, 142, 160 Ahai Gaon, R., 70 Aharon, 8, 10 Ahima‘az, 66 Aimerico Giliani of Piacenza, 20, 25–28 Aldrovandi, Ulisse, 22 Alemanno, Yohanan son of Isaac, 197, 201–202, 206–208 Commentary of the Song of Songs, Hesheq Shlomo, 207 Aleppo Codex, 33–34, 51–52, 61 Aleppo, 220, 312–325 Alexander of Macedon, 11 Alexandria, 11, 220 Alfasi, Yitzchak, 70 Algeria, 313, 319, 347

Alkalay, Yehuda bar Leon, 187 Ketubba Leḥag Shavuot (Venice, 1753), 172, 184, 187 Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU), 345, 348–350, 353–354, 357–358, 361–362, 365, 369 Almanzi, Joseph, 307, 311 Alonso-Núnez, José-Miguel, 7 Amar, Amram, 315 Amenophis, 10 amidah, 83–84, 317–318 Ammon, 10 Anavim family, 67 Ancona, 127, 164, 190, 195, 219, 222, 322 Ancona, Chaviv of Aleppo, 322 Andalusia, 45, 105–106 Angier, Carol, 390–393 Anissimov, Myriam, 389, 395–396, 398 Annales School, 229 Antebi, Avraham, 316 Yoshev Ohalim, 316 Penei Ha-Bayit, 316 Antebi, Yitzhak, 316 Beit Av, 316 Ohel Yitzhak, 316 Antiochus, 133 Apollonios Molon, 4 Aporti, Ferrante, 404 Apostolic Papal States, 188, 190, 192, 195

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Part Four    The Contemporary Perio Apuglia, 67 Apulian Otranto School of Hebrew copyists, 62 Arafat, Yasser, 380, 385 Aragonese Jews, 191, 193 Aramaic, 51, 63, 126, 171–172, 179, 181–183, 185–187, 216 Arbib, Angelo, 334 Arbib, Eugenio, 368 Arbib, Gustavo, 366 Arbib, Raffael, 367 Aristotelianism, 91, 96, 199–200, 206, 208 Aristotle, 96, 98, 100 De interpretatione, 98 Metaphysics, 96 Physics, 100 Armstrong, John, 329 Arthur, King, 129 Artom, Elia Samuele, 410 Arukh, 77, 89 Asher, R., 76 Asher Ben Yechiel (Asheri or Harosh), 239, 246 Ashkar-Gilson Hebrew Manuscript, 36 Ashkenazim, 31, 34, 55, 64–66, 69–70, 167–168, 215, 219, 228–247, 254 Aslanoff, Cyril, 93 Assisi, 197 Asti, 167, 186 Attal, Robert, 358 Attia, Yeshaya, 315 Bigdei Yesha, 315 Attia, Yitzhak, 314 Akev Anavah (1826), 315 Bigdei Yesha (1827), 315 Doresh Tov (1826), 315 Eshet Chayil (1821), 315 Mesharet Moshe (1823), 315 Ot Le-Tovah (1818), 315 Penei Ha-Mayim (1831), 315

Pilpelet Kol She-hi (1793), 315 Rov Dagan (1818), 315 Vayikra Yitzhak (1826), 315 Yikra Dechayei (1793), 315 Zekhut Avot (1821), 315 Zera’ Yitzhak (1793–94), 315 Attiya, Chaim, 323 Atzvan, Mordechai, 320, 323–325 Zoveach Todah, 323 Augustine, 5 Auschwitz, 388–390, 392–394, 398–399, 401 Austrian Empire, 407 Avicenna, 266 Canon, 266 Avignon, 188, 190, 192, 194–196, 198 Azariah of Rossi, 208 Azdrubal, 146, 149 Azriel from Yenna see Dayena, Azriel Azulai, Hayyim Yoseph David (Hida), 68, 163, 274, 323, 325 Birkei Yosef, Orach Chaim, 323 P’nei David, 68 Babylon, 8, 21, 61, 72–73, 89, 128, 132, 152 Babylon, Tower of, 132, 152 Bachur, Eliyahu, 233 Bovo D’Antona, 233 Badoglio, Pietro, 334, 336, 343 Balbo, Italo, 336–338, 343 Balmes, Abraham de, 90–106 Miqneh Abram (Peculium Abrae), 90–105 Bar-Ilan, Meir, 130–131, 140, 159 Bardo, Treaty of, 347 Barges, Sachs. J. J. L., 38–39 Bari, 67 Barthes, Roland, 229 Barzilay, Isaac E., 213 Bashan, Eliezer, 330

Index Basser, Yaacov, 40–41 Beit-Arié, Malachi, 19, 46, 60, 62, 109 Hebrew Codicology, 62 Belilious family, 314, 322 Belilious, Yaakov, 320–321 Bellini, Giovanni, 248, 252–267 Circumcision, The, 252–256, 258, 262, 267 Presentation in the Temple, 254–256, 265, 267 Bemidbar Rabbah, 126 Ben Sira, 159 Ben-Amozeg, Eliyahu, 162 Ben-Arié, Dror, 104, 106 Linguistic Theory, The, 104, 106 Ben-Gurion Airport, 381 Ben-Gurion, Joseph, 130 Ben-Yehudah Society, 365 Benedict XIV, 24 Benedict XVI, 374–377, 381–382, 384–385 Benghazi, 338, 359, 361, 364, 368 Benzion Provençali, 196 Beracha, Yitzhak, 314 Berach Yitzhak, 314 Bereshit Rabbah, 140, 200, 201n7 Berger, Peter L., 383 Bergolotto, Elisabeth, 197 Berlin, 405 Berlin, Isaiah, 391 Berliner, Abraham, 22 Bernard of Clairvaux, 256 Bernardino of Siena, 249 Bettan, Israel, 211–212 Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 51 Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, 23, 38 Birnbaum, Salomo A., 36 Bloch, René, 15 Bnei Israel, 373, 379 Bocchieri, Emanuele, 355 Bocchoris, 10n45

Bologna University Library, 16–63 Bomberg, Daniel, 91 Bona-Guelma, 346 Bonfil, Reuven, 66, 73 Bonfil, Robert, 131, 199 Bonura, Francesco, 353 Book of Jasher (Sefer haYashar), 127–160 Mantua edition, 129 Book of the History of Mankind, see Book of Jasher Bouskila, Revital, 295n12, 299 Brignone, Pietro, 357 Britain, 272–274, 350, 359. See also England Bulla Hebraeorum gens (1569), 195 Burrows, Mathew, 354 Cairo Genizah, 19, 31–32, 35, 37, 41–42, 45, 60–61. See also genizah Calabria, 112, 125–126 Calcagnile, Lucio, 29 Calcar, Jan Stefan, 266 Cambridge University Library, 31, 35 Campanini, Saverio, 22, 54, 93 Carbonaro, 347 Carmi, Joseph Yedidia, 168 Caro, Joseph, 59, 196, 293, 298, 301, 305 Beit Yosef, 301 Maggid Meisharim, 305 Shulḥan ‘arukh, 59, 293, 301 Carpentras, 190–191, 195 Carthage, 142, 148–150, 353 Casati Law of, 1859, 408 Cassuto, David, 33n24 Cassuto, Umberto, 410 Castelbolognesi, Gustavo (Chief Rabbi of Padua), 335–336, 338 Castelnuovo, Giacomo, 346, 348–349 Castilian Jews, 191–193, 201 Catalunia, 45

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Part Four    The Contemporary Perio Catherine of Siena, 251 Catholicism, 189, 300, 331, 371–387, 408 Cavaillon, 190 Central Zionist Organization, 359 Chaeremon, 10 Chajes, Jeffrey, 296–298 challah, 230–231, 233–239, 241, 244, 246 Chazal, 214–219, 221 Cherasco, 195 Cheyette, Bryen, 402 Chief Rabbinate of Israel, 214, 220, 372–374, 376–377, 382–383, 387 Chieri, 195, 269 chivalric literature, 129, 140, 145, 147–148, 160 Christian Doctrine, Brothers of, 347 Christianity, 25, 27, 91, 112, 128–139, 139, 142, 155, 164, 203–204, 229–230, 237, 243–245, 249–251, 254, 256, 258, 261–263, 265–267, 272–273, 278, 284, 290, 296–297, 299–301, 306–311, 331, 347, 360– 361, 364, 366, 372–376, 381–387, 397, 409, 412 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 3–4 De Provinciis Consularibus, 4 Cinque Savi (Council of the Five), 243 circumcision, 236, 248–267 Cirié, 195 Cleitarchus, 11 Codex Cairensis, 51 Codex of St. Petersburg B19A, 51 Cohen Salon, Shmuel, 242 Cohen, Yitzhak Yosef, 167 Colon, Joseph (Mahariq), 193–194 Comtadin Jews, 191, 194, 196 Comtat, 188, 190, 192, 195 Comté de Toulouse, 190 Comté (Royaume) de Provence, 190

Conat, Abraham, 129 Concordat, 331 Constantinople Pentateuch, 177 Constantinople, 98, 172n11, 177, 179 Corazzol, Giacomo, 17, 20 Cordovero, Moshe, 161–162, 303–304 Corinaldi, David, 320 covenant between God and Jews, 250, 261, 267, 374 Cracow, 199 Crispi, Francesco, 350, 356 Cristo in scurto, 264–265 Ctesias of Cnidus, 11 Cuneo, 195–197 Cyrenaica, 333, 351 d’Urbino, Bartolomeo, 262 da Vinci, Piero d’Antonio, 197 Damascus, 7–8, 12 Dan, Joseph, 129–130, 140–142, 213, 295 Dante Alighieri, 392 Divine Comedy, 392 Dante Alighieri, Società, 345, 352–353, 355–357 Darly (d’Arles), Jacob, 194 Dato, Mordecai, 161 David ben Zion Modena, 233 Daber Tov dictionary, 233 Davidson, Herbert, 213 Dayena, Azriel, 193, 242 de Charny, Geoffroi, 148 De Felice, Renzo, 338 De Leeuw Van Weenen, Rob, 157 De medicina equorum, see Giordano Ruffo De Montfaucon, Bernard, 21 Diarium italicum, 21, 23, 25–27 De Riati, Moshe, 165 De Rossi, Giovanni Bernardo, 22, 24 Variae lectiones Veteris Testaments, 22

Index De Tata, Rita, 20, 22 Defense of the Race, 397 della Francesca, Piero, 264 De Prospectiva Pingendi, 264 Demetrius, 13 Deweick Ha-Kohen, Shmuel, 317 Di San Giuliano, Antonio, 352 Di Segni, Ricardo, 374 Diaspora, 180, 223, 297, 301, 317, 327– 330, 343, 374, 376–377, 379–381, 386–387 Dinah, 137–138 Diodorus Siculus, 5, 9, 14 Disegni, Dario, 365, 367 Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), 289 Dominican Library (Bologna), 22–23, 26 Dominicans, 21–24, 27–28 Donnolo, Shabbatai, 119 Pirqe Hippoqrat, 119 Dotan, Aron, 34, 60 Double Tombs, Cave of the, 142 Douglas, Mary, 229 Duke University Library, 36 Duris of Samos, 11 Durkheim, Émile, 328–329 dybbuk, 289–311 Edom, 141–142, 144–145, 153, 155, 158, 160 Egypt, 9–12, 14, 19, 42, 130, 134, 139, 141–142, 143, 145, 150–153, 156, 220, 318, 350, 356 Ein Gedi scroll, 63 Elazar, Daniel, 330 Elazar b. Shmuel of Verona, 68, 76–78 Eleazar of Worms, 40–43 Eliezer from Metz (Mintz), 73 Elior, Rachel, 293–294 Eliyah del Medigo, 208

Emmanuel, Taamrat, 340 England, 346, 409. See also Britain Ephorus, 11 Erfurt, Thomas of, see Thomas of Erfurt Ergas family, 314 Ergas of Livorno, Abraham, 317–318, 322 Ergas of Livorno, Yosef, 162, 317–318, 322 Eritrea, 339 Esau, 139–144, 145, 156 Eshet Hayil, 164 Ethiopia, 326–332, 339–343 Eusebius, 4 Evangelical Church, 410 expulsion from Egypt, 9–12, 14 expulsions of Jewish communities, 188–193, 195–197 expulsion from Spain, 91, 180, 213, 296–297, 299–301, 306 Ezra of Fano, 162 Ezra Scroll, 21, 24, 63 Fables of Sandebar, The, 141 Faitlovitz, Jacob, 339–340 Falasha villages, 341 Falkon, Elijah, 295 Fargion, Elia, 368 Fargion, Rahamim, 268 Farissol, Abraham, 165, 194, Fascism, 327–328, 331–333, 339–340, 324, 342–343, 355, 357, 370, 388, 390–391, 395, 397–398 Ferrara Bible, 174, 177, 180 Ferrara Siddur, 172, 183 Ferrara, 17, 165, 167–168, 170, 182, 184, 187, 194, 250, 321, 324 Fès, 130–131 Finzi, Giulio, 348 Flaccus, Lucius Valerius, 3 Florence (Firenze), 35, 167, 171–172, 178, 187, 197, 208, 282, 339–340, 349, 403–415

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Part Four    The Contemporary Perio Florentine Israelite University, 404, 411–412 Florentine School of Arts and Crafts (Vocational School), 410–414 Florio & Rubattino, 368 Flusser, David, 127–160 Book of Jossipon, 127–160 Fossano, 195 Franciscan Monastery in Nazareth, 382 Franco, Abraham Chaim Marini, 316 Franco, David Altaras, 316 Franco, Eliyahu Silvera, 324 Franco family, 314, 317–318, 322 Franco, Yitzhak Silvera, 314 Frederick II, 108 French Protectorate, 344–345, 347–348, 350–351, 353, 357–358 Frigeis, Lazaro de, 266 Fundamental Agreement (1993), 371–387 Galen, 266 Galli family, 197 Gazda, Elaine K., 2 Gedaliah Ibn Yahya, 298 Genazzani, Adriana, 407 genizah, 62, 68. See also Cairo Genizah geonim; gaonic, 61, 66, 70, 72, 75, 78–81, 85, 89 Germany, 64, 72, 81, 233, 239, 243, 246, 273–274, 278–279, 374 Gershom Meor Ha-Golah, 70, 127, 220 Gerundini, Rubino, 197 Gete, Jeremiah, 340 Giacomo della Marca, 249, 255, 267 Ginzberg, Louis, 72–73 Giordano Ruffo ( Jordanus Rufus), 107–126 Glick, Shmuel, 319 Goldberg, Dov, 38

Goldschmidt, Daniel, 129, 147 Gorizia, 307, 321 Grana community, 344, 348, 355, 357 Grange, Daniel, 352 Great Synagogue of Rome, 372, 374, 377, 386 Greece, 1–2, 9, 67, 128, 138–139, 242, 356 Greeks; Greek culture, 1–4, 9, 11, 15, 35, 67, 42, 98, 128, 138–139, 266, 350, 356, 396 Grimani, Domenico, 93 ha-Kohen, Benjamin, 162, 167–168 Ha-Kohen, Shmuel, 315–316 ha-Levi, Ya’akov, 162 Hacker, Joseph, 299 Hacohen, Mordecai, 362 Haftara, 170, 172, 178–179, 181, 183, 185, 187. See also Habakkuk; Ninth of Av Hafṭarot VeTargum, 183 Hagège, Claude, 348–349 Haggadah, 169–187 Hai Gaon, 75 Hakitia, 179 halakhah, 61–62, 75, 77–79, 81, 85, 87, 89, 166, 217, 221, 230, 241, 325, 376 Halevi, Judah, 212–213 Hallawah, Judah, 292, 298 Zafenat Pa’neah, 292, 298 Ham, 132 Hamor, son of Shechem, 138 Hananel, R., 70, 73n59, 76–78 Haniba’al, 141, 149 Harari, Moshe, 317 Harari, Yitzhak, 323 harkavah (compositio), concept of, 90, 93–96, 98, 101–106 Harrowitz, Nancy, 395, 398

Index Hasmonites, Books of the, 159 Hasmonean period, 13 Hassan (Tappo), Vittorio, 366 Hassan, Pace, 367 Hayut, Rabbi (Florence), 340 Hebrew Bible, 22n10, 35, 45, 51, 59, 60, 63, 129–131, 140, 151, 159, 165–166, 169–187, 218, 342 Torah Genesis, 19, 30–31, 35, 37, 53– 55, 128, 140n35, 142n43, 150n58, 152, 174–175, 250, 260n38, 318–319. See also Bereshit Rabbah Exodus, 18–19, 30, 33, 52–58, 128, 152, 260, 292 Leviticus, 19, 30, 54, 56, 59, 63, 128, 260, 292 Numbers, 31, 51, 53, 57–59, 128, 320. See also Bemidbar Rabbah Deuteronomy, 31, 33–34, 52– 53, 56, 59, 128, 177n17 Nevi’im Former Prophets (Nevi’im rishonim) Joshua, 128 Judges, 128, 138, 159 Kings, 33n24, 141n42 Latter Prophets (Nevi’im aḥaronim), 51 Isaiah, 174, 211n41 Jeremiah, 33n24, 51, 55, 185 Ezekiel, 51 Twelve Minor Prophets (Trei Asar), 33n24 Amos, 33n24 Obadiah, 33n24 Jonah, 33n24 Micah, 33n24

Habakkuk, 172, 178–179, 181, 183, 186 Zephaniah, 33n24 Haggai, 33n24 Zechariah, 33n24 Ketuvim Psalms, 33, 172, 181 Proverbs, 200–201 Job, 152, 171–172, 205 Song of Songs, 33n24, 171–172, 181–183, 186, 207 Ruth, 171–172 Lamentations, 33n24 Ecclesiastes, 33n24, 200, 211 Esther, 33n24, 144, 158, 172 Ezra, 33n34 Nehemiah, 17n1, 26n19, 33n24, 204 Hecataeus of Abdera, 5, 9 Heckel, Waldemar, 12 Hemdat Yamim (Smirna, 1732), 166–168 Henry VIII, 54 Heracles, 143, 157 Herod, 134 Herodotus, 7, 11 Hilkhot Ha-Rif, 78 Himbaza, Innocent, 50–51 History of Moshe Rabbeinu, The, 129, 141, 159 Hitler, Adolf, 328, 342–343 Hol-Hamo’ed, 162 Holocaust, 372, 375, 385–386 Holy See, 371–387 Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, 374, 377 humanism, 91, 105, 199, 213, 278–279, 392

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Part Four    The Contemporary Perio Huna, R. 80 Hushim, 142 Iancu, Daniele, 194 Ibn Gabirol, Shlomo, 172, 183 Azharot, 172, 181, 183–185 Idel, Moshe, 199, 201–204, 206, 208, 213 Il Giornale di Tripoli, 366 Il Messaggero di Tripoli, 366 Il Messaggero ebraico, 366 Il Progresso, 366 International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ILC), 373 International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), 373–374 Isaiah di Trani, R. (the Rid), 64–89 Piske Ha-Rid, 69–70, 74, 76, 81–86, 88. See also Talmud Sefer Ha-leket, 69 Sefer Ha-makhria, 69, 78–80 Tosafot Ha-Rid, 68, 73, 80, 86, 88. See also Talmud Islam, see Muslim Israel (the organ of the Board of Italian Jewish Communities), 367 Israel dei Ragazzi, 407 Israel of Perugia, 161 Israel Sarug, 161 Israel’s Declaration of Independence, 377–378 Isserlein, Israel, 237 Terumat Hadeshen, 237 Istanbul, 314, 316 Italiane, 326–343 Itzhaq of Meknes, 325 Izmir, 318 Janus, 139, 155, 157–158, 399–400 Jasher, Book of, see Book of Jasher

Jerusalem, 6, 17, 28, 46, 72, 130, 197, 232, 238, 249, 313, 321, 324, 325, 379, 382, 384–386 Jesus Christ, 25, 248–267, 270, 371, 373, 375, 395 Johanan, R., 73–74, 84, 88 John Paul II, 372, 374–375, 377–378, 386 Jonah, R. 78–79 Jordani Ruffi Calabriensis Hippiatria, 109 Jordanus Rufus, see Giordano Ruffo Josephus Flavius, 4, 9–10, 127–130, 129, 159 Jossipon, Book of, see Flusser, David Justinus, Marcus Junianus, 7 Kabbalah, 38, 41, 78, 161–168, 199, 201–203, 206–208, 212–213, 292–294, 296–298, 301–304, 306, 308, 313, 318, 323–325, 299 Kaeppeli, Thomas, 27 Kalonymus ben David, 91 Karaites, 42 kashrut, 37, 44, 231, 239, 376 Katzenellenbogen, Samuel Judah, 212 Katzin, Yehudah, 320 Kennicott, Benjamin, 22, 24 ketubah, see ketubot ketubot, 214–227 Kingdom of Jerusalem, 232 Kittim, 132, 136, 137, 138, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158 Klijnsmit, Anthony J., 93 Knesset, 380, 382 Kor’an, 128 kosher, 80, 239, 241, 243, 307, 396 Kü–Bukh, 233–234 Kush, 132, 145–146, 149, 151 L’Eco di Tripoli, 366 L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, 190, 197

Index La Goulette, 346 La nostra colonia di Tunisi (1933), 357 La Nuova Italia, 367 La Stampa, 366 Labi, Enrico, 368 Labi, Ernesto, 368 Ladino Siddur, 170 Ladino, 165, 169–187 Lambertini, Lorenzo, 24 Languedoc, 190 Laniado, Shmuel, 317–321 Laskier, Michael, 349 Latin, 2, 9, 11–12, 23–26, 38, 91, 94–95, 98–126, 170–177, 187, 203, 222, 224, 366, 394 Latinus, 139, 146, 149 Lattes, Aldo, 338, 340 Lattes, Emmanuel, 191 Lattes, Jehudah (Leone), 197 Lattes, Isaac, 191, 192 Lattes, Moses, 197 Lattes, Salomon de, 194 Laurentian Library in Florence, 35 Leon of Modena, Jehuda, 162, 251, 260 Riti Ebraici, 251 Leroy-Beaulieu, Paul, 347 Leven, Narcisse, 348 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 229 Levi, Primo, 388a–402 If Not Now, When?, 400 If This Is A Man, 392, 394 “Lilith,” 399–400 Monkey’s Wrench, The, 393, 400 Periodic Table, The, 389–390, 393–394, 396, 398 Levy, Moses, 355 Levy, Nello, 355 Liberman, Hayyim, 167 Library of the Institute of Science, 23 Libya, 326–339, 342–343, 359–370

Liebman, Charles, 330 Lithuania, 409 Livorno, 163, 167, 169, 171–172, 177–179, 185, 187, 225, 270, 274, 276, 280, 312–319, 322–323, 325, 359–360, 404 Livorno, Collegio Rabbinico of, 360 Livy, 6, 135–137, 159 Scholia in Lucanum, 6 Lobi, Peter, 25, 27 London, 36, 182, 187, 253, 272, 346 Long Deuteronomy, see Book of Jasher Lunario-ebraico libico 5698, 367 Luria, Isaac, 161–163, 292, 295–296, 301, 318, 323–324 Luzzato, Michael, 197 Luzzatto, Mordecai Marco, 311 Luzzato, Moshe Hayyim, 162, 166, 168 Luzzatto, Shemuel David, 162 Lysimachus, 10 Ma’asse Avraham, 129, 159 Madonna, 397 Maḥzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (Ferrara, 1553), 170, 172, 179 Maḥzor Venezia (1805), 179 Maḥzor Vitry, 38, 40, 43 Maḥzorim Le-Shalosh Regalim, 171, 179, 184, 187 Maimonides, see Moshe ben Maimon Mainz, 242, 374 Malach, Shlomo, 315–316 Malahi, Y., 69 Manetho, 9, 10 Manosque, Aquineto de, 194 Mantegna, Andrea, 248, 254, 256–267 Circumcision, The, 254, 256, 258–260, 263, 267 Lamentation over the Dead Christ, 262

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Part Four    The Contemporary Perio Madonna of the Victory, 265 Presentation in the Temple, 256–257, 265, 267 Mantua, 167–168, 254, 321 Maqre Dardeqe, 125–126 Margulies, Samuel Hirsch, 340, 410 n21 Marini, Sabbetai Aaron of Padua, 309–311 Marsili, P., 25, 27–28 Martín-Contreras, Elvira, 51 Masorah, 22, 50–51 Masoretic; Masoretes, 19, 40–43, 45, 50, 57, 63 Masseket soferim, 34, 37, 52 Matzliah, Yehuda, 168 Meam Loez, 169 Megillat Ahima’az, 66 Megillat Sefer Torah (Megillat Torah), see Sefer Torah Meiri, 76 Meldola, Ya’akov, 164 Menahem Azariah of Fano, 161–163, 166 Menahem di Lonzano, 320 Or Torah, 320 Menaseh ben Israel Mayse Bukh, 296 Nishmat Hayyim, 296 Mendeleev’s Periodic Table, 390 Merton, Robert, 329 Messer Leon, David ben Judah, 201, 208 Michaelis, Meir, 340 Midrash VaYiss’u, 128–129, 140–141, 159 midrashim, 38, 67, 81, 126, 128–129, 140, 159, 185–187 Miduren, Yitzhak, 246 Miglau family, 196 Mildolla, David, 319 Minerbi, Sergio I., 340 Mintz, Mahari, 243

Mishnah, 37, 42, 60, 66n11, 67, 75, 80, 83, 88, 165–166, 171, 182, 215n1, 217n4, 219n10. See also Talmud Mishnat Hasidim (Amsterdam, 1727), 167 Mitzvot Hanashim (1552), 228–247 Mizrachi, Nissim Chaim Moshe, 320 Mizrachi, Yisrael Meir, 320 Modena, 168 Modistic school; influence; concepts, 90–106 Modona, Leonello, 17–20, 24 Moelin, Yaakov ben Moshe Levi (Maharil), 235 Mogador, 349 Molin, Geronimo, 109 Moncalvo, 167, 189 Montano, Benito Arias, 21–22 Morag, Shlomo, 93 Morocco, 27, 214–215, 350–351 Morpurgo, Giuseppe, 348 Morpurgo, Shimshon, 162 Moscato, Judah, 200–213 Commentary on the Judah Halevi’s Kuzari (Kol Yehuda), 202, 209, 212–213 Sermons, 200–205, 210–213 Moses, 6, 8–10, 13, 26, 33, 146, 149, 151, 182, 197, 200, 204, 207–208, 210, 225, 249, 260–261, 270, 303, 355, 390 Moshe Basola, 161 Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam), 31, 40, 42, 44, 78, 80–81, 89, 205, 207n26 Hilkhot Sefer Torah, 44 Mishneh Torah, 44 Mount Sinai, 12, 390 Muhammad III as-Sadiq (Bey of Tunis), 346–348, 350 Muslim; Muslims, 45, 290, 299, 301, 306, 333, 361, 364, 369–370, 376, 382

Index Mussolini, Benito, 327–328, 331, 336, 340, 342–343, 388, 391, 398 Nachum, Eliezer, 321 Naftali, 142 Naḥmanides (Ramban), 41–42, 78, 86–87, 295 Naples, 91, 125, 169 Napoleon, 20, 23, 269, 275, 282, 403, 407 nationalism, 268, 270, 284, 287, 326, 366, 380, 385–386 Nawi, Yosef, 317 Nazareth, see Franciscan Monastery in Nazareth Neoplatonism, 147, 200, 204, 207–208 Netanyahu, Binyamin, 382 New Testament, 249, 348 Nhaisi, Elia, Nicholas of Cusa, 203 Nicholas of Damascus, 8 Nimrod, 132 Nimukei Yosef, 75 Ninth of Av, 170, 172, 181, 185 Nissim, Aristide, 414 Nissim, Mordechai, 315 Noah, 132, 152 Norsa family, 265 Nostra Aetate, 373, 375–376 “Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church,” 378 Notre Dame Center, 382 Numa Pompilius, 5n20 Nunes Vais, Carolina, 361 Nunes Vais, Yaakov, 315 Obadiah Bertinoro, 161 Orden de los Cinco Tahaniyot (Venezia, 1609), 170, 172

Oriental tradition, 23, 28, 45–46, 52, 61 Ortona, Moshe, 366 Oslo Accords, 384–385 Ottoman Empire, 173, 176–177, 179–180, 184–185, 187–188, 291, 299, 313, 317, 334, 346, 350, 356, 359–367, 370 Ovadya Ha-Levi, 315 Chazon La-Mo’ed, 315 Chazon Ovadya, 315 Ovid, 15 Ars Amatoria, 15 Owen Hughes, Diane, 250, 255 Pacifici, Alfonso, 410 Pacifico, Gaon Yitzhak, 320 Padova, 109, 233, 243, 315 Padova, Menashe, 315 Padua, 91, 166, 221, 254, 261–262, 307–309, 321, 335 Paggi, Giannetto, 360–361 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 380 Palestine, 65, 73, 75, 79, 337, 380 Palestinian Authority, 380, 383, 386 Paltoi Gaon, 79 Pannella, Emilio, 27 Papal Library of Bologna, 23 Pardo, David, 187, 320 Paunus, 139 Penkower, Jordan S., 28, 33–34, 39, 47, 50, 52–53 New Evidence for the Pentateuch Text in the Aleppo Codex, 33 Perpignan, 25, 27–28 Persia; Persian, 128, 182 Perugia, 161, 197 Petrograd ms., 51 Petrus Marsilii, see Marsili, P. Philanthropic Society of Arts and Crafts, 410, 412

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Part Four    The Contemporary Perio Philo, 208 Phritibautes, 10 Phylarchus, 11 Piameta, Joseph, 168 Piattelli, Angelo, 28 Piccioto, Moshe Chai, 314 Picus, 139 Piedmont, 193–197, 269, 408 Piedmontese Jews, 193–196, 395, 397 Pietro Verri School, 363 Pinto, Shmuel, 317 Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, 128 Pisa, 167–168, 170–172, 177–179, 185, 187, 200–201, 223, 270, 285, 287, 319 Pius V, 190–191 Pius XI, 331 Platon, see Neoplatonism Plutarch, 5n20, 135, 137, 159 Pollaco, Emma, 364 Polybius, 11 Pompey, Gnaeus, 3–4, 6 Portuguese, 165, 173, 180, 299, 312– 314, 325 Posidonius, 11 Prague, 199 Provençalim, 190, 193, 196 Provence, 20, 27, 45, 190, 192, 194, 196–197, 303 Ptolemy (king of Egypt), 130 Ptolemy of Mendes, 11 Pua family, 179 Puget family, 196 Punic wars, 139, 142 Qimḥi, David, 91, 93, 105 Mikhlol, 91 Ra’abad, 76, 79 Rabin, Yitzhak, 380, 385 Raccah, Gabriele, 367

Rambam, see Moshe ben Maimon Ramban, see Naḥmanides Ran, 87 Rashba, 78, 83 Responsa of the Rashba, 83 Rashi, 38, 68–70, 74, 76, 171, 179, 246 Ratzabi, Y., 85 Rava (Abba ben Joseph bar Ḥama), 78 Ravà, Vittorio, 23 Ravenna, Felice, 335–337, 340–341 Ravid, Benjamin, 258 Realpolitik approach, 378, 383–385 Recanati, Menahem, 201, 206 Commentary on the Torah, 206 Red Sea, 14 Reform Judaism, 278–279 Reinach, Salomon, 358 Resh Lakish, 82–83 Rhineland, 67 Ri Migash, 75 Rid, see Isaiah di Trani Rif, 75–76, 86–87 Rikki, Emmanuel Chai, 162, 167, 318, 324–325 Yosher Levav, 324 Rimini, 197 rishonim, 86–87, 89 Risorgimento, 268–269, 274–280, 284, 287–288 Ritba (Yom Tov Ishbili), 64–65 Rodriguez family, 314 Rodriguez, Abraham, 323 Roma, Banco di, 368 Rome; Roman, 1–7, 9, 1–15, 24, 65, 67, 128–129, 135–138, 141–143, 149, 155, 160, 167, 188–192, 195, 216, 224–225, 327, 331–343, 349, 355, 371–379, 381, 383–387, 408 Rosh Hashanah, 170 Rosh Hodesh, 83–85 Roussillon, 190

Index Rovigo, 320 Roza, Moshe of Aleppo, 316 Zikhron Tov, 316 Ruah Ivvim, 307 Rubenstein Tate Books & Manuscripts Library, 36 Ruderman, David B., 209 Russia, 401, 409, see also Soviet Union Sa‘adyah Ga’on, 38, 41–43 Saadon, Eliezer, 315 Sabines, 135–138, 147–148, 160 Saccardetti, Angelo, 334–336, 339 Ṣadokim, 42 Safed, 161–163, 165–166, 196–197, 291–293, 296–298, 301–302, 308, 313 Saint Joseph, Sisters of, 347 Salernitan School, 107 Salomon ( Jew of Florence), 197 San Domenico, Convent of, 20–21, 26 San Salvatore, Convent of, 23 Sangviniti, Meir, 315 Saragosa, 163 Saranga, Carmela, 130–131 Ṣarfatim, 189–197 Sasson, 557, 68 Sasson, Israel, 323 Saturnus, 139, 143, 155 Savigliano, 194–195 Savoy, 190, 192–195, 408 Schäfer, Peter, 14 Schalom, Abraham, 213 Schechter, Solomon, 19 Schlanger, Judith, 28, 45 Second Temple, 42, 127–128, 135, 160, 242, 291, 326, 330 Second Vatican Council, 371, 373–375 Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity, 374 Seder Nashim (1504), 229–230, 244, 247

Seder Nashim (Salonica, 1550), 164 Sefer Ha-Bahir, 294, 303 Sefer Tagin, 31, 38, 39, 40–41, 43, 50, 60–63 Sefer Ha-’arukh, 73 Sefer Ha-Itur, 76 Sefer Ha-Minhagim, 235 Sefer Ha-Yashar, see Book of Jasher Sefer Torah, 16–20, 23–24, 27–28, 32, 35–38, 41–44, 47, 49, 52, 53, 57, 60–63 spacing of Parashiyyot, 42 Sefer Yetzirah, 38, 81, 206 sefiroth, 202–204, 206–208 Segré family, 196 Segré, Renata, 190, 196 Seleucids, 13 Seliger, Martin, 383–385 Sephardic, 31, 34, 43, 45–46, 109, 167, 172, 179, 183, 185–186, 188, 215, 219, 242, 256, 312–314, 317, 319, 325 Sermide, 194 Settimana Israelitica, 367 Seven Elders of Rome, The, 141 Sfax, 352 Sforno, Obadiah, 208, 280 Shama, Eliyahu, 316 Kontres Machsirei Millah, 316 Korban Ishe, 316 Shama, Yosef, 316 Shear, Adam, 213 Shechem, 138 Shed Yahir, 307 Sheffer, Gabriel, 329 Shem Tov ben Avraham ibn Ga’on, 38, 40, 42–43 Migdal Hananel, 38 Sefer badde Aron, 38 Shen’ar, 132 Sherira Gaon, R., 70

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Part Four    The Contemporary Perio Shimon (son of Yaakov), 138 Shirat ha-yam (The Song of the Sea), 18, 33, 52–53 Shlomo Refael Laniado (Rashal), 316, 318–319, 321–323 Beit Dino Shel Shlomo, 316 Hama’alot Le-Shlomo, 316 Lechem Shlomo, 316 Shlomo ben Hayatom, 73 Shmuel ben Natronai, 67n19 Shmuel de Medina, 323 Shulhan Arukh, see Caro, Joseph Sifre, 51 Šifʿat Revivim (Livorno, 1793), 187 Simcha of Vitri, 38, 40, 246 Simcha Kalimani, 314 Simson of Sens, 73 Sirat, Colette, 19, 35 Smith, Donald E., 383 Sofino, Eliezer, 319 solidarity, 328, 330, 333 Sousse, 352 Soviet Union, 384 Speculative grammar, 90–106 St. Peter’s Basilica, 374 Steinschneider, Moritz, 108 Stoic philosophy, 5, 7 Strabo, 6, 12 Sulema, Pompeo, 348 Synod of Bishops, 375–376 Syria, 4, 7–8, 10, 15, 220, 312–313 Ta-Shema, I., 65, 67, 70 tagin, 31–32, 35–45, 50, 52–53, 60–61, 63 Takkanot Shum, 214 Talmud Bavli (Babylonian), 37, 46, 51, 52, 64, 65n6, 70, 72n57, 73–83, 86–89, 178n19, 204n18, 205, 215n1, 216n3, 217n4, 217n7,

219n9, 221n15, 243n62, 243n64, 244, 245n73 Yerushalmi ( Jerusalem), 62, 64, 67, 69, 72–89, 238n42 tractates (B = Bavli; Y = Yerushalmi; T = Tosafot Ha–Rid; P = Piske Ha–Rid) Berakhot, 68 (T), 69n41 (Y), 74 (Y), 83 (Y), 84n76 (Y), 204 (B), 301n32 (B) Shabbat, 37 (B), 51 (B), 65 (B), 70n43–44 (T), 70n48 (T), 78 (Y), 89n82 (Y) Eruvin, 69n41 (T), 75 (B; Y) Pesahim, 78 (Y; T), 83n73 (Y), 243n62 (B) Yoma, 77n56 (B) Betzah (P), 81 Rosh Hashanah, 65 (B), 70n50 (T) Taanit, 83 (M, Y, P), 84n76 (M, Y) Megillah, 42 (M), 82n73 (Y), 322 (B) Moed Katan, 75 (Y), 76 (B; Y), 85 (P; Y), 85n78 (B) Hagigah, 73 (B; Y), 74n62 (T) Yevamot, 205 (B), 217n4 (M) Ketubot, 216n1 (M), 216n3 (B), 217n4 (B), 219n9 (B), 219n10 (M) Gittin, 76–77 (Y; P), 77–78 (B) Kiddushin, 70n48 (T), 86 (Y; T; P), 87 (Y), 88 (T; P), 322 (B) Bava Kama, 68 (T), 69n39 (T), 82 (Y; P), 82n73 (P), 83 (P), 88 (P), 88 (M; Y), 178n19 (B), 217n7 (B), 221n15 (B), 

Index Bava Metzia, 76 (B; P), 86 (B),  Bava Batra, 74 (P), 77n66 (B), 86–87 (Y) Sanhedrin, 42 (B), 73 (M) Avodah Zarah, 80 (T; M; Y), 84 (Y), 245n73 (B) Pirke Avot, 169–187 Menahot, 37 (B), 60 (P), 67n20 (P), 74 (P), 85n78 (B) Keritot, 46 (B) Niddah, 82 (P) Tangier, 349, 350 Tarsus, 139 Tauran, Archbishop Jean-Louis, 379 Teachers Institute in Florence, 339 tefillin, 84–85, 162 Tel Aviv, 60, 219 Téné, David, 93 Tharshish, 132, 138–139 Theopompus, 11 Thessalonica (Thessaloniki), 172n11, 177, 179, 181n26, 184n35, 187, 199 Thomas of Erfurt, 90, 92, 96, 98–100, 102–13, 105–106 De modis significandi sive grammatica speculativa, 97 Grammatica speculativa, 90, 92, 96, 99–101, 103–104, 106 “Tibbonian Hebrew,” 107 Tibbonians, 113 Tibullus, 15 tikkunim, 165–168 Timaeus, 11 Timagenes of Alexandria, 11–12, 14 Tirosh-Samuelson, Hara, 199 Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), 248, 265–267 Circumcision, 265–267 Toaff, Ariel, 190, 234 Torino, 194–196, 365–366

Tosafists, 65–66, 68–71, 73, 75, 83 Toulouse, 20, 27, 190 Treves, Mattathias, 193, 196 Treves, Yohanan, 193, 196 Tripoli, 333–339, 359–369 Tripolitania, 333, 351, 356, 359, 361 Troen, Ilan, 330 Trogus, Gnaeus Pompeius, 6–15 Historiarum Philippicarum (Philippic History), 7, 12 Tunis, 274, 346, 347, 348, 352, 355, 357, 358 Tunisia; Tunisian, 313, 319, 344–358 Turin, 269, 280, 349, 395, 398 Twersky, Isadore, 212 Tzedekiah b. Avraham of the Anavim family, 67 Shibolei Haleket, 67 Ullamo, Ya’akov Daniel, 168 Umbria, 197 Union of Italian Jewish Communities (Unione delle Communità Ebraiche Italiano), 327 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (November 29, 1947), 379 University of Padua, 91 Urbach, Ephraim E., 75 Valenzi, Maurizio, 355 Valle, Moshe David, 162, 166 Vandals, 140, 143, 148, 154 Varro, Marcus Terentius, 5 Vasari, Giorgio, 261, 264 Lives of the Artists, 261 Vatican, see Holy See Veneto, 234 Venice, 91, 130, 161, 166–167, 171–172, 177–180, 184–187, 229, 237, 242–243, 248–267, 274, 313–314, 320–321

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Part Four    The Contemporary Perio “Verbum Domini—The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church,” 375 Verona, 68, 168, 233 Verres, Gaius Licinius, 4 Vesalius, Andreas, 266 Fabrica, 266 Vichy, Régime de, 355 Vienna, Congress of (1814–15), 23 Villari, Pasquale, 355 Virgil, 142, 157, 159 Vital, Hayyim, 292, 295 Viterbo, Carlo Alberto, 327, 339–342 Wars of Jacob’s Descendants, The, see Midrash VaYiss’u Wellesz, Gyula, 93 Wolleka, 340 World War II, 358, 370, 388–389, 394, 401 Worms, 41–43, 242 Xerxes, 13, 133 Yaako, Rabbenu Tam, 66 Ya’ari, Abraham, 167 Yagel, Abraham, 200n4, 208–209 Yardeni, Ada, 19, 35–37, 63

Yare, Daniel, 168 Yassif, Eli, 156 Yehi’el Nissim of Pisa, 200–202 Minḥat Kenaot, 200 Yemenite Jewry, 34, 219 Yiddish, 180, 229–231, 233–240, 247, 296 Yirmiyah, R., 86 Yitzchak, Rabbenu (Ri ha-Zaken), 70–71 Yitzchak ben Moshe (Or Zarua), 76, 83, 87 Yom Kippur, 170, 187 Yona Ibn Ǧanaḥ, 93 Yosef ben Moshe, 237 Leket Yosher, 237 Yosef Ben Shmuel haKatan from Fès, 130–131 Joseph’s Robe, 31 Yozefa Shamash, 242 Zacuto, Moshe, 162–163, 167–168 Zeno, 5 Zepho ben Eliphaz, 129, 131, 139–152, 155–156, 160 Zionism, 359, 367–368, 370, 400–401 Zohar, 165–166, 201, 303 Zunz, Leopold, 129