Resources for 2015
The End of Jewish Democracy in 18th Century Prague
One intriguing register for considering continuities and changes in Jewish life in the early eighteenth century is the constitution of the autonomous Jewish community, or _kehillah_. This institution of Jewish self-government was formed at the nexus of the imposition of governments, on the one hand, and Jewish collective investment in the legitimacy and utility of this form of association, on the other.. Although Jewish communal leadership appears to have been determined by elections in the earlier centuries of this period, by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries an increasing trend towards permanent ruling oligarchies can be discerned. A standing patriciate is in evidence in Frankfurt by the 1620s, and Prague, while it maintained a contentious partisan structure throughout the seventeenth century, succumbed to a permanent oligarchy in 1703. The following document represents the decisive moment (on November 10, 1703), when Emperor Leopold decreed an end to Jewish democracy in Prague, and replaced it with a standing governing body. Of particular note are a number of salient themes, including the relationship between royal/imperial fiat and Jewish self-government, the function of the kehilla as a tax-farming entity as the critical basis for its legitimacy in the eyes of the state, royal awareness of factionalism and strife among Jews, and, subtly but importantly, efforts by the Habsburg monarchy to bring Jewish administration into line with other denizens of the realm.
Experience is Proof: Texts versus Observation in Eighteenth-Century Italy
No description available.
Illicit Sex and Law in Early-Modern Italian Ghettos
This presentation explores the changes of attitudes toward illicit sexual relations within the ghetto societies that occurred in Italy between the late seventeenth century and the middle of the eighteenth century, with a specific focus on young Jewish maidservants. It analyzes how Italian Jewish leadership, both lay and rabbinical, acted in regard to the vicissitudes of Jewish women who faced seduction, sexual exploitation, and pregnancy under the Jewish roof. This analysis uses archival sources from both Jewish courts and civic magistracies in the cities of Venice, Mantua, and Modena during the years 1691-1751. Through a combination of paternalism, cohesiveness, innovation, and surveillance, Italian Jewish communities were capable of containing destabilizing behaviors within the society, and reintegrating women who otherwise would have been tragically lost by obliging the seducers to marry them, or to take care of them as well as their illegitimate children. As recent scholarship has demonstrated, in both contemporaneous Italian Christian contexts and other European Jewish communities women in similar conditions were often rejected and left alone, along with their illegitimate offspring.
A Jewish Casino in Livorno
In the spring of 1712, a Jewish _casino_ was established in the Mediterranean port of Livorno (the _casini_ were exclusive sites for conversation and game playing among the upper classes). Although in the seventeenth century the Jewish leadership had opposed them, it allowed this one to open as a way to prevent more dangerous forms of entertainment among young people. The venue was explicitly intended for the solace of the Livornese Jewish merchants and was given official sanction by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1714, the _massari_ (lay leaders) of the community assumed control of the space, by renting rooms on behalf of the community, and appointed one Isache Zamero as their agent to manage it. The following document includes some of the motivations that led the _massari_ to accept the _casino_’s establishment, as well as the regulations they issued in order to guarantee decorum and modesty within its premises.
Jewish Space and Spiritual Supremacy in Eighteenth-Century Italy
No description available.
Johan Kemper's (Moses Aaron's) Humble Account: A Rabbi between Sabbateanism and Christianity
Moses Aaron of Krakow, a Sabbatean rabbi, who would later call himself Johan Kemper, chose to convert to Christianity in the summer of 1696. When his mentor, the Lutheran cleric Johann Friedrich Heunisch, brought his mentee's wish before the council of the Free Imperial City of Schweinfurt, Kemper was asked to submit the reasons for his request together with a short autobiography in written form. The outcome was his _Humble Account_, which appeared in print shorty after Kemper was baptized. A close analysis of Kemper's _Humble Account_ reveals a very subtle yet pronounced anti-Jewish narrative which makes use of well-established early modern stereotypes of Jews and Judaism on the one hand and standard theological arguments on the other hand. The autobiography is nevertheless more than a mediocre anti-Jewish polemical treatise, for it not only features one of the rare descriptions of the lesser known Sabbatean messianic upheaval of 1695, which was caused by the prophecies of a certain Rabbi Zadok of Grodno, but it also seems that some of Kemper’s own remarks have escaped the censorship of his friend and mentor and thus allow a glimpse into Kemper’s own perception of his conversion.
Striking a Pietist Chord: Isaac Wetzlar’s Proposal for the Improvement of Jewish Society
In 1748/49, Isaac Wetzlar of Celle in Northern Germany completed _Libes Briv_ (Love Letter), a Yiddish proposal for the improvement of Jewish society. In order to initiate exploration of the complex relationship between Central European Judaism and eighteenth-century Pietism selected sources are discussed that concentrate on the links between _Libes briv_ and the contours of German Pietism. These sources demonstrate that Isaac Wetzlar’s _Love Letter_ (edited and translated into English by M. Faierstein) substantially engages the concepts and initiatives encompassed by Pietist missionary efforts to Jews. The diaries of two travelling missionaries from the Institutum Judaicum in Halle who came to Celle several times in the 1730s as part of their quest to convert Jews document that Wetzlar engaged in theological discussions with at least one of them (cf. presentation by A. Siluk, source 1, “Travelling Journal of Johann Georg Widmann, 1732”). The sources introduce Isaak Wetzlar’s _Love Letter_ as a calculated response to the challenge posed by Pietist missionaries and Christian critiques of Jewish life: Wetzlar’s call for religious and social renewal seems to compete with contemporaneous Christian Pietists over the preferable vision for eighteenth-century Central European Jewry.
The Religious Condition of German Jewries in the First Half of the 18th Century: Rural and Urban Communities in Comparison
This presentation focuses on Jewish attitudes towards non-Jews in the first half of the 18th century as depicted in the travelling journals of Pietist missionaries. If up to that point, interreligious encounter had been a field of interaction between Jewish and Christian scholars, in the 18th century the missionaries began to engage in conversations on faith with Jews of all social strata, genders, ages and educational backgrounds. Such interactions yielded many different forms of individual and communal Jewish reactions. Examining cases of missionary encounters with the large urban Jewry of Frankfurt (Main) and the smaller, rural _kehilah_ of Celle (in the Principality of Hanover), I will discuss the different levels of openness Jews displayed in their interaction with the missionaries and their connection to the respective communal structure and living conditions of each settlement. In addition, I will show that, in contrast to older views, one should not confuse the openness of Jews towards their Christian environment with a decrease in faith, a decline in communal cohesion, or a dissolution of traditional structures. Finally, I will contrast the findings on the religious condition of the Jewry of Celle with the critique on the matter made by Isaak Wetzlar, the author of the ‘Libes briv’ (see the presentation by Rebekka Voß) and a member of the Celle _kehilah_.
The Sabbatean Who Devoured His Son: The Emden-Eibeschütz Controversy and Cannibalism
No description available.