Jewish Culture in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of David B. Ruderman, eds. Richard I. Cohen, Natalie B. Dohrmann, Adam Shear, and Elchanan Reiner (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2014) (original) (raw)
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IN his introduction to Early Modern Jewry, David Ruderman reveals something of his intellectual autobiography by relating to three seventeenth-century figures who inspired him in his scholarly path and had a significant impact on how he conceives of the Early Modern as a distinct era in Jewish history. Each figure is connected in some way to the Italian port of Venice. Though they differ considerably from one another, in their distinctive hybridity Leon Modena, Simone Luzzatto, and Joseph Shlomo Delmedigo were each paradigmatic of the age. Modena, the enigmatic rabbinic figure, was full of internal contradictions. A man of great learning-restless and creative with no bounds, critical and sharp like a knife, courageous and questioning-he delved into the new and traditional worlds of knowledge that engaged Jewish culture in his day. Modena, as a man of many worlds and interests, a dabbler and an intellectual, holds in his person the vicissitudes and internal conflicts of the early modern intellectual experience. The second, Simone Luzzatto, while also a Venetian rabbi like Modena, was dramatically different from Modena. Standing in between the Jewish community and the Italian surrounding, Luzzatto sought to lower the walls of the ghetto. His 1638 Discorso circa il stato de gl'hebrei et in particolar dimoranti nell'inclita città di Venetia (A discourse on the state of the Jews, particularly those dwelling in the illustrious city of Venice) fused notions of Italian civic thought with emerging concepts of raison xii Adam Shear, Richard I. Cohen, Elchanan Reiner, and Natalie B. Dohrmann d'état. This stirring apologetic for the Jews of Venice forcefully argued that their petty trading, their overall usefulness and, especially, their loyalty to the Republic combined to make a significant contribution to the welfare of the city. In a work that is cited repeatedly in modern discussions on the emancipation of the Jews, Luzzatto enunciated a new political vision for the Jews, one in which they would be integrated more fully, even if not seamlessly, into seventeenth-century society. The third figure, Delmedigo, charted a course for Jews toward the new sciences of the early modern period. Born in Crete, and of very distant Ashkenazic origin, Delmedigo's identity was no less imbued with Sephardic and Mediterranean roots. He studied medicine in Padua, where he learned astronomy with Galileo, and spent a year in Venice where he encountered both Modena and Luzzatto. Delmedigo was clearly not the sedentary type. He traveled to the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and later to Central Europe, taking with him his conflicting identities and interests, inter alia, science and Kabbalah, rabbinism and Karaism, East and West, new books and old manuscripts. Even more than the other two, Delmedigo reflects in his person the cultural image of the period to which this book is dedicated. Despite the fact that these three were individuals on the margins (or perhaps because of it), their restlessness, curiosity, and lust to travel were symptomatic of an age of changing boundaries and kaleidescopic new vistas. The Talmud tells of a stone in Jerusalem, the so-called stone of claims (even to'im). From atop this stone, in this highest city at the navel of the world, a person would announce what they had found, ask one's great questions, and stake one's claims. Ruderman's stone of claims-his intellectual touchstone-has always been Venice. Venice was not just the incidental meeting place of these enigmatic men; it is the metropolis that best emblemizes the Italian world that sparked the intellect and curiosity of David Ruderman. Writing in the late 1980s, he described this Italian Jewish world in the following words: In absorbing diverse Jewish and non-Jewish cultural forms and creatively molding them into constantly novel configurations, in patiently tolerating diversity and discord, in channeling ideas and values from one place to another as an entrepôt and clearing house of merchandise, and in allowing individuality to blossom within a framework of communal consensus, Italian Jewry was expressing its own vitality, its own creativity. Perhaps the function of mediating and correlating, of translating one universe of discourse into another, is not so passive, not so unspectacular an achievement… From the perspective of the postmodern world in which we live, one of diverse cultural lifestyles and values where no single ideology reigns supreme but where bitter acrimony and extremism hold sway, the image of Italian Jewry seems refreshingly appealing. Perhaps in its quiet sanity and dignified restraint, in its mutual respect and tolerance for competing and dissenting parties, and in its harmonizing and integrative capacities, can be located not only the essential legacy of Italian Jewish civilization but also its enduring significance for contemporary culture. 1
IN his introduction to Early Modern Jewry, david ruderman reveals something of his intellectual autobiography by relating to three seventeenth-century figures who inspired him in his scholarly path and had a significant impact on how he conceives of the early Modern as a distinct era in Jewish history. each figure is connected in some way to the italian port of venice. Though they differ considerably from one another, in their distinctive hybridity leon Modena, simone luzzatto, and Joseph shlomo delmedigo were each paradigmatic of the age.
Descriptions of the history of Jews and Judaism in an early modern context are of relatively recent origin. 1 Despite a plethora of new studies in the last several decades, there have been few attempts to define the period of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries as a distinct epoch in Jewish history, distinguishable from both the medieval and modern periods. 2 Some historians have remained indifferent to demarcating the period, or have simply designated it as an extension of the Middle Ages, or have labelled it vaguely as a mere transitional stage between medievalism and modernity without properly describing its distinguishing characteristics. A few historians have used the term 'Renaissance' to apply to the cultural ambiance of Jews living in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries alone without delineating the larger period and the more comprehensive geographical area. I offer here my own preliminary sense of how one might speak about the primary transformations in Jewish civilization in this era considering primarily the distinct histories of five large sub-communities-those of Italy, the Sephardim (descendants of Jewish settlers from the Iberian peninsula, who settled in the West (for example, the Netherlands), and those who settled in the East (the Ottoman Empire)), Germany and central Europe, and Poland-Lithuania-in their broader connections with each other. I consider five primary markers in tracing the major political, social, and cultural transformations of early modern Jewry as a whole. Each element needs to be examined over the entire period and across regional boundaries to assess its significance as a vital dimension of a newly emerging Jewish cultural experience. These categories overlap but, to my mind, they offer a most promising beginning in speaking about a common early modern Jewish culture. I would be the first to acknowledge that these markers are tentative at best, that they might describe inadequately and incompletely certain aspects of the larger landscape I wish to describe, and that some of the factors affected more people than others. I am also aware that in attempting to define a distinct epoch in Jewish history, I focus more on transformations and discontinuities in this chapter than