Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy

by Robert Bonfil, Anthony Oldcorn (Translator)

With this heady exploration of time and space, rumors and silence, colors, tastes, and ideas, Robert Bonfil recreates the richness of Jewish life in Renaissance Italy. He also forces us to rethink conventional interpretations of the period, which feature terms like "assimilation" and "acculturation." Questioning the Italians' presumed capacity for tolerance and civility, he points out that Jews were frequently uprooted and persecuted, and where stable communities did grow up, it was because the hostility of the Christian population had somehow been overcome.

After the ghetto was imposed in Venice, Rome, and other Italian cities, Jewish settlement became more concentrated. Bonfil claims that the ghetto experience did more to intensify Jewish self-perception in early modern Europe than the supposed acculturation of the Renaissance. He shows how, paradoxically, ghetto living opened and transformed Jewish culture, hastening secularization and modernization.

Bonfil's detailed picture reveals in the Italian Jews a sensitivity and self-awareness that took into account every aspect of the larger society. His inside view of a culture flourishing under stress enables us to understand how identity is perceived through constant interplay―on whatever terms―with the Other.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Judaism

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Harrison Helms · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice survey of the Jews in late medieval/early modern Italy. Definitely some important revisions to common historiographical narratives. However, some passages are virtually incomprehensible. Not sure if the author or the translator is to blame.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent survey of the history of Jews in Italy between 1350 and 1550, give or take. The perspective is somewhat iconoclastic. His basic thesis is that the Jews were not being assimilated, because the elites were showing interest in philosophy, science and art, but rather that they were "men of their time." The perspective that many have had on the Italian experience is conditioned by the experience in Eastern Europe, which is not relevant to the study of Italy.

[Victoria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thoroughly unconvincing. Slipshod use of sources and pretty limp grasp of the Christian context into which the Jewish experience fits.