Francesca Bregoli
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780804786508
- eISBN:
- 9780804791595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804786508.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter introduces the implications of the Livornese case for three broad fields of Jewish historiographical inquiry: the nature of Jewish acculturation; the history of the Jewish Enlightenment; ...
More
This chapter introduces the implications of the Livornese case for three broad fields of Jewish historiographical inquiry: the nature of Jewish acculturation; the history of the Jewish Enlightenment; and processes of Jewish emancipation. Livornese Jewry complicates the supposedly linear connection between acculturation and modernization. While privileged Jews consumed and participated in outside culture, they did so without rejecting Judaism and the corporate community. The chapter additionally introduces the notion that the Livornese Jewish encounter with the Enlightenment provides an alternative to both the Haskalah and the Anglo-Jewish model, because of its focus and its development in Tuscan cultural sites and through European languages. Finally, an examination of the relationship between the Tuscan state and Livornese Jewry shows that the process toward emancipation in merchant enclaves was neither linear nor simple as previously believed.Less
This chapter introduces the implications of the Livornese case for three broad fields of Jewish historiographical inquiry: the nature of Jewish acculturation; the history of the Jewish Enlightenment; and processes of Jewish emancipation. Livornese Jewry complicates the supposedly linear connection between acculturation and modernization. While privileged Jews consumed and participated in outside culture, they did so without rejecting Judaism and the corporate community. The chapter additionally introduces the notion that the Livornese Jewish encounter with the Enlightenment provides an alternative to both the Haskalah and the Anglo-Jewish model, because of its focus and its development in Tuscan cultural sites and through European languages. Finally, an examination of the relationship between the Tuscan state and Livornese Jewry shows that the process toward emancipation in merchant enclaves was neither linear nor simple as previously believed.
Francesca Bregoli
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780804786508
- eISBN:
- 9780804791595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804786508.003.0010
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter draws comparative conclusions about the significance of the Livornese example. While the specificity of Enlightenment Tuscany and the system of the port of Livorno account for its ...
More
This chapter draws comparative conclusions about the significance of the Livornese example. While the specificity of Enlightenment Tuscany and the system of the port of Livorno account for its distinctiveness, this case study has larger implications for Sephardi and Italian Jewish history. First, the chapter recapitulates the ways in which the Livornese model of intellectual engagement with eighteenth-century culture offers an alternative to the Anglo-Jewish Enlightenment and to the Haskalah in its early and later phases, comparing Livornese scholars to further Italian and Sephardi examples. It then offers final remarks on the ways in which the confrontation with the reforming absolutism that defined eighteenth-century Tuscan policies provided another crucial venue for Livornese Jewry's encounter with Enlightenment ideas. In particular, the continued importance of the corporate nazione ebrea is significant when comparing Livorno with contemporary Italian examples, as well as with the cases of Bordeaux, Amsterdam, and London.Less
This chapter draws comparative conclusions about the significance of the Livornese example. While the specificity of Enlightenment Tuscany and the system of the port of Livorno account for its distinctiveness, this case study has larger implications for Sephardi and Italian Jewish history. First, the chapter recapitulates the ways in which the Livornese model of intellectual engagement with eighteenth-century culture offers an alternative to the Anglo-Jewish Enlightenment and to the Haskalah in its early and later phases, comparing Livornese scholars to further Italian and Sephardi examples. It then offers final remarks on the ways in which the confrontation with the reforming absolutism that defined eighteenth-century Tuscan policies provided another crucial venue for Livornese Jewry's encounter with Enlightenment ideas. In particular, the continued importance of the corporate nazione ebrea is significant when comparing Livorno with contemporary Italian examples, as well as with the cases of Bordeaux, Amsterdam, and London.
