Jewish life in Renaissance Italy / Robert Bonfil.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bonfil, Robert, Author.

Standardized Title:

Ebrei in Italia nell'epoca del Rinascimento. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Italy--History.

Jews.

Italy--Ethnic relations.

Italy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (335 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, [1994]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Introduction

I. The Laws Of Topodemographic Distribution

II. Trades And Professions

III. The Problem Of Sociocultural Identity: Some Preliminary Observations

IV. Education And The R A B B I N I C A L Ideal

V. Jewish Culture, Hebraists, And The Role Of The Kabbalah

VI. Community Institutions

VII. Time And Space

VIII. Sounds And Silence

IX. Colors, Tastes, And Odors

X. The Days Of Life

XI. Death As The Mirror Of L I F E

Afterword

Notes

Bibliographical References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9786612356414

9781282356412

1282356410

9780520910997

0520910990

9780585081328

0585081328

OCLC:

630528047