Centro Primo Levi

PROGRAMS

May 5

Silversmiths and Literati: Modena’s Jewry from the Renaissance to Emancipation

A multimedia presentation in collaboration with the Municipality of Modena.

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May 12

Gods and Laws: The Roman Empire and the Rabbis in Pre-Christian Palestine.

Natalie Dohrmann, University of Pennsylvania

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May 13

Longing for the Future: Italians in Israel 1920-2008.

Screening of the film “Chalutzim: Pionieri in Eretz Israel” by Marco Cavallarin and Marcvo Mensa.

Talk by Manuela Consonni, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: “Enzo Sereni: A Jewish Hero Between Two Worlds”.

The program will be held at the Consulate General of Italy. Reservations are strictly required.

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May 20

The Tree of Life. A Film by Hava Volterra.

A conversation with the film maker will follow the screening.

The program will be held at New York University Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute and the Consulate General of Italy.

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Menorah on stone from the synagogue of Ostia Antica, Rome.

Courtesy Jewish Museum of Rome

book dealers, silversmiths, printers, and silk weavers. Such involvement averted cultural and commercial stasis in the administrations of city and Duchy, which themselves lacked any real intelligentsia or ruling class. Although life in the ghetto was difficult, indeed intolerable (for over two centuries nearly one thousand Jews lived confined within two narrow blocks), a continuity of internal cultural and religious activity kept the Modenese Jewish environment vibrant and rich. These families opened in the ghetto nine synagogues, two schools, and twelve confraternities devoted to prayer, study, and economic assistance.

Furthermore, they were able to extend their political role nationally: at the beginning of the Napoleonic era (1796), some exponents of these families moved to Milan, capital of the Repubblica Cisalpina and Regno d ’Italia, where they founded a new Jewish community lead by Moisè Formiggini. Formiggini and his Modenese followers were able to unify and organize politically the Jews of Northern Italy under their new French rulers. They organized and led the Italian Jews in the 1806 and 1807 assemblies of Paris, organized modern schools, reformed confraternities (hevrot) and participated in the Emancipation debate with other European Jewish intelligentsia. Such activities were unique in the context of Italian Jewish society.

Utilizing images of both architecture and cultural patrimony of Modenee Jews, I will examine the main aspects of this extraordinary journey over three various centuries. If we consider Italy as a mirror of the Jewish encounter with European civilization, Modenese Jewry cannot be conceived as merely a simple case of local history. With its complex household structures, it took a distinct path —and played a distinct role—in the shaping of modernity.

MAY 5, 2008

Center for Jewish History

15 West 16 Street, NYC

7:00 pm

Admission: $10

Tickets: 212-868-4444

www.smarttix.com

Silversmiths and Literati: Modena’s Jewry from the Renaissance to Emancipation.

A multimedia presentation by Dr. Federica Francesconi, University of Haifa.

The Jewish community of Modena –the city-capital of Estense Duchy in Northern Italy- played a central role in the Italian and European context from the Renaissance to the Emancipation. Thanks to their capacity to develop early into an actual bourgeoisie, Modenese Jews autonomously cultivated their own religious and cultural identity from the late Renaissance to the modern age. This lecture explore the means by which a network of influential Jewish families -such as Formigginis, Modenas, Foas, Sacerdotis and Sanguinettis- formed and maintained a role of communal leadership through business creation, culture and philanthropy, and international inter-familial alliances.

They forged a strategy of solidarity that helped the entire community to adjust to life in the ghetto, and to temper both the strong conversionary pressures of the Church and the perpetual fiscal demands of the State. They developed a leading Italian merchant trade society, and established commercial networks throughout the Mediterranean as