Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy

BONFIL, ROBERT

ISBN 10: 0520073509 / ISBN 13: 9780520073500

Published by University of California Press, 1994

About this Item

London, Univ. of California Press, 1994. XIV, 320 pp. Very good copy. Clean, no name, underlinings, markings or any other traces from former owner. Hardcover, with dustjacket. Judaica. 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.

Seller Inventory # 51415

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520073509
• ISBN 13: 9780520073500
• Binding: Hardcover

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Robert Bonfil is Professor of Jewish History at The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. His extensive publications on the history of Italian Jewry in Hebrew, Italian, French, and English have earned him an international reputation. Anthony Oldcorn is Professor of Italian Studies at Brown University.