Matthias B. Lehmann
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780804789653
- eISBN:
- 9780804792462
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804789653.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
Emissaries from the Holy Land tells the story of a philanthropic network that was overseen by the Jewish community leadership in the Ottoman capital city of Istanbul between the 1720s and the 1820s ...
More
Emissaries from the Holy Land tells the story of a philanthropic network that was overseen by the Jewish community leadership in the Ottoman capital city of Istanbul between the 1720s and the 1820s in support of the impoverished Jews of Palestine. Putting the notion of Jewish solidarity, Jewish unity, and the enduring centrality of the Holy Land for the Jewish world to the test, the community leadership in Palestine and their allies in Istanbul dispatched rabbinic emissaries on fundraising missions everywhere from the shores of the Mediterranean to the port cities of the Atlantic seaboard, from the Caribbean to India. This book explores how this eighteenth-century philanthropic network was organized and how relations of trust and solidarity were built across vast geographic differences. It looks at how the emissaries and their supporters understood the relationship between the Jewish diaspora and the Land of Israel, and it shows how cross-cultural encounters and competing claims for financial support involving Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and North African emissaries and communities contributed to the transformation of Jewish identity in the eighteenth century.Less
Emissaries from the Holy Land tells the story of a philanthropic network that was overseen by the Jewish community leadership in the Ottoman capital city of Istanbul between the 1720s and the 1820s in support of the impoverished Jews of Palestine. Putting the notion of Jewish solidarity, Jewish unity, and the enduring centrality of the Holy Land for the Jewish world to the test, the community leadership in Palestine and their allies in Istanbul dispatched rabbinic emissaries on fundraising missions everywhere from the shores of the Mediterranean to the port cities of the Atlantic seaboard, from the Caribbean to India. This book explores how this eighteenth-century philanthropic network was organized and how relations of trust and solidarity were built across vast geographic differences. It looks at how the emissaries and their supporters understood the relationship between the Jewish diaspora and the Land of Israel, and it shows how cross-cultural encounters and competing claims for financial support involving Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and North African emissaries and communities contributed to the transformation of Jewish identity in the eighteenth century.
Jonathan Ray
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814729113
- eISBN:
- 9780814729120
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814729113.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter looks at Jewish religious identity. Religion operated as an organizing principle in Sephardic life. The key elements of this process included the adoption of local customs in new areas ...
More
This chapter looks at Jewish religious identity. Religion operated as an organizing principle in Sephardic life. The key elements of this process included the adoption of local customs in new areas of settlement, the importance of public displays of piety and allotment of honors, and the different ways in which rabbis and average Jews dealt with the religious identity of the former Conversos who reverted to Judaism during this period. The shared set of religious values and legal tradition that had bound together Mediterranean Jewry for centuries continued to allow for mutual recognition, understanding, and support throughout the Jewish world. However, the divisions between rabbinic ideals and popular practice that had strained Jewish solidarity before 1492 remained a defining characteristic of Sephardic life.Less
This chapter looks at Jewish religious identity. Religion operated as an organizing principle in Sephardic life. The key elements of this process included the adoption of local customs in new areas of settlement, the importance of public displays of piety and allotment of honors, and the different ways in which rabbis and average Jews dealt with the religious identity of the former Conversos who reverted to Judaism during this period. The shared set of religious values and legal tradition that had bound together Mediterranean Jewry for centuries continued to allow for mutual recognition, understanding, and support throughout the Jewish world. However, the divisions between rabbinic ideals and popular practice that had strained Jewish solidarity before 1492 remained a defining characteristic of Sephardic life.
