The Jews in Italy: Their Contribution to the Development and Diffusion of Jewish Heritage
Edited by Yaron Harel and Mauro Perani
All twenty-two original articles in the current volume are based on lectures given at the conference “The Jews in Italy: Their Contribution to the Development and Diffusion of Jewish Heritage,” which was convened in September 2011, at the University of Bologna, Department of Cultural Heritage (Ravenna campus). Geographically, the articles range from Italy to the Ottoman Empire (the Balkans and Aleppo), from France and Germany to the Middle East, including Israel, North and East Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Ethiopia). Chronologically, articles span from the Roman period, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, to modern times. In this collection, the reader will find a wide range of subjects reflecting various scholarly perspectives, such as history; Christian-Jewish relations; Kabbalah; commentaries on the Bible and Talmud; language, grammar, and translation; literature; philosophy; gastronomy; art; culture; folklore; and education.
Table of Contents
Preface
THE ROMAN PERIOD
Roman Attitudes to Jews and Judaism in the First Century BCE / Miriam Ben Zeev
THE MIDDLE AGES & THE RENAISSANCE
The Oldest Complete Extant Sefer Torah Rediscovered at the Bologna University Library: Codicological, Textual, and Paleographic Features of an Ancient Eastern Tradition / Mauro Perani
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
Abraham de Balmes’s Miqneh Abram: An Adaptation of Modistic Concepts by a Hebrew Grammarian of the Renaissance / Dror Ben-Arié
The Anonymous Hebrew Translation of Giordano Ruffo’s De medicina equorum and Its Language / Michael Ryzhik
Between The Book of Jossipon and The Book of Jashar / Carmela Saranga
Italian Jewry and Kabbalistic Rites / Moshe Hallamish
Ladino Translations from Italy: The Bible, Pirke Avot, the Passover Haggadah, and the Siddur / Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald
The Jews of France and Italy during the Later Middle Ages and the Renaissance / Shimon Schwarzfuchs
Torah and Nature in the Writings of Some Italian Jewish Thinkers of the Renaissance / Miguel Antonio Beltrán Munar
Prenuptial Agreements in Ketubot from Italy / Yoel Shilo
THE MODERN PERIOD
Jewish Ashkenazi Gastronomy in Northern Italy in the Early Modern Period: The Testimony of the Book Mitzvot Hanashim / Zahava Weishouse
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
Freemasonry and Saint-Simonism as Carriers of Enlightenment Values in David Levi’s Weltanschauung / Alessandro Grazi
The Unique Characteristics of Dybbuk Exorcisms in Rabbinic Documents from Eighteenth-Century Italy / Yaniv Goldberg
Rabbinic Ties between Italy and Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century / Leah Bornstein-Makovetsky
THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD
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
The Dispute between Italy and France in Tunisia: The Role of Language and the Position of Italian Jewry / Filippo Petrucci
Jews as Promoters of Italian Civilization in Libya / Rachel Simon
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
Primo Levi: Chemist/Writer, Italian/Jew / Smadar Shiffman
Jewish Educational Proposals in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Florence / Silvia Guetta
