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Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century pp 81–100Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Claiming Livorno: Citizenship, Commerce, and Culture in the Italian Jewish Diaspora

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Abstract

This chapter examines the dense economic, social, and cultural ties that connected overlapping Jewish communities in Livorno and Tunisia. Through a close case study of the Moreno family, the chapter explores the transnational lives of Livornese Jews in Tunisia. Livornese Jews in Tunisia participated in commercial networks and social and cultural milieus that reinforced their connections to Italy, relying on these economic and cultural practices to make claims of Italian citizenship. In the complicated imperial landscape of nineteenth-century Tunisia, Livornese Jews maneuvered within instrumental understandings of citizenship, while also becoming architects of cultural and affective meanings of Italian citizenship abroad.

My thanks are due to Dario Gaggio and Todd Endelman for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this chapter. I am also grateful to Massimo Sanacore and the archivists at the Archivio di Stato di Livorno for their help with the Moreno archive.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Aron Daniele Moreno to Ugo Moreno, 20 August 1889, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 2, Archivio di Stato di Livorno (ASL), Livorno.

  2. 2.

    Julia Clancy Smith, Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an Age of Migration, c. 1800–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 289.

  3. 3.

    The privileges of the Livornine permitted settlers to return to Judaism without fear of the Inquisition, even if they had lived or traded as Christians elsewhere. The charter provided the right to a synagogue, the legality of Jewish holidays, and vast amounts of administrative and judicial autonomy. Jews in Livorno were not required to wear any distinguishing items of clothing or to live in an enclosed ghetto. The full text of the Livornine can be found in Renzo Toaff, La Nazione Ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700) (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1990), 419–435.

  4. 4.

    According to data from insurance policies, between 1765 and 1790 Jewish merchants based in Livorno controlled as much as 83 to 94 percent of exports from Livorno to North Africa and between 11 and 35 percent of exports to the Levant. Jean-Pierre Filippini, “Il posto dei negozianti ebrei nel commercio di Livorno nel Settecento,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 50 (1984): 644. For more information on the early modern history of Livorno and its Jewish community, see: Francesca Bregoli, Mediterranean Enlightenment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-Century Reform (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014); Jean-Pierre Filippini, Il Porto di Livorno e la Toscana (1676–1814) (Rome: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1998); Lucia Frattarelli Fischer, Vivere fuori dal ghetto: Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno (secoli XVI–XVIII) (Turin: Silvio Zamorani, 2008); Renzo Toaff, La Nazione Ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700) (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1990); Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers: the Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

  5. 5.

    Ballottazione referred to a secret vote by which Jewish leaders admitted individual foreign Jews to the nazione ebrea.

  6. 6.

    Until 1753, per an agreement with the Ottoman Empire, Tuscans were under the protection of the French consulate. Jean-Pierre Filippini, “La ballottazione a Livorno nel settecento,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 49 (1983): 199–268.

  7. 7.

    Jean-Pierre Filippini, “Gli ebrei e le attività economiche nell’area nord Africana (XVII–XVIII secolo),” Nuovi Studi Livornesi 7 (1999): 131–149: 144.

  8. 8.

    Two historians who articulate this position are Samuel Fettah, “Temps et espaces des traffics portuaires en Méditerranée: Le cas du port franc de Livourne (XVII–XIX siècles),” Ricerche storiche (1998): 243–273 and David LoRomer, Merchants and Reform in Livorno 1814–1868 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).

  9. 9.

    Livorno suffered deeply during the Napoleonic era and British blockade, but after the reinstitution of the free port in 1814, commerce in Livorno began to grow again. In 1839, while Livorno’s traffic had fallen behind Genoa’s, Livorno was still in fifth place among Mediterranean ports, after Marseilles, Trieste, Constantinople, and Genoa. Emanuele Repetti, Dizionario geografico fisico storico della Toscana, vol. 2 (Florence: Presso l’autore e editore, 1838), 754.

  10. 10.

    Luigi Serristori in Livorno ed i suoi traffici, 372 as quoted in Roberto Bachi, “La demografia dell’Ebraismo italiano prima dell’emancipazione,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel. Scritti in onore di Dante Lattes 12, 7–9 (1938): 256–320: 284.

  11. 11.

    While water damage has made some pages difficult to read, the number of Jews moving between Livorno and Tunis seems to be: 842 men, 264 women, 274 children (1380 total). Daniela Pennacchio, “Ebrei fra Livorno e altri porti del Mediterraneo secondo i registri delle emigrazioni dell’Archivio Storico della Comunità Israelitica,” in Studi mediterranei ed extraeuropei, ed. Vittorio Salvadorini (Pisa: Edistudio, 2002), 224.

  12. 12.

    In Livorno, there was a long history of Jews being involved in the commerce of spices and medicines. In Tunisia, the beys often preferred having Tuscan Jews as their personal doctors. Liana Elda Funaro, “Lumi e consigli: i Bonaventura ed altri “negozianti di droghe” a Livorno nel primo Ottocento,” Nuovi Studi Livornesi 15 (2008): 171–209: 191.

  13. 13.

    H.Z. Hirschberg, History of the Jews in North Africa, vol. 2 (Boston: Brill, 1974), 98.

  14. 14.

    Pharmacy Register of Moise Moreno, 1819–1863, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 1, ASL, Livorno.

  15. 15.

    Vittorio Salvadorini, Tunisia e Toscana (Pisa: Edistudio, 2002), 435.

  16. 16.

    Isacco Coriat to “I miei amati,” 7 June 1874, as quoted in Liana Elda Funaro, “Il ruolo degli ebrei livornesi: due percorsi individuali su uno sfondo mediterraneo,” in I laboratori toscani della democrazia e del Risorgimento: La ‘repubblica’ di Livorno, l’ “altro” Granducato, il sogno italiano di rinnovamento, eds. Laura Dinelli and Luciano Bernardini (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2004), 79–98: 92.

  17. 17.

    Copialettere, 11 November 1822, Archivio della comunità ebraica di Livorno (ACEL), Livorno.

  18. 18.

    Bachi, “La demografia dell’Ebraismo italiano prima dell’emancipazione,” 287.

  19. 19.

    Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers, 22.

  20. 20.

    Aron Daniele Moreno to Isacco Coriat, 14 July 1863, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 2, ASL, Livorno.

  21. 21.

    Aron Daniele Moreno to Isacco Coriat, 29 July 1863, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 2, ASL, Livorno.

  22. 22.

    Isacco Coriat to Aron Daniele Moreno, Undated letter 1863, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 2, ASL, Livorno.

  23. 23.

    Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers, 181.

  24. 24.

    Registration of Commercial firm, 1 August 1876, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 5, ASL, Livorno.

  25. 25.

    The founding capital of society was 350,000 piastre with 250,000 from Isacco Coriat and 100,000 from Moreno. Two-fifths of either the profits or losses went to Isacco, while three-fifths went to Daniele Moreno and his sons, Raffaello and Leone. Contract of 1 August 1876, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 5, ASL, Livorno.

  26. 26.

    Mathilde Enriques to Ugo Moreno, 25 January 1914, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 5, ASL, Livorno.

  27. 27.

    In 1900, the firm was reconstituted as Maison Raffaello Moreno & C., and all of the relevant documents were written thereafter in French. In 1913, after the death of Raffaello, Ugo Moreno, a lawyer by profession, and Daniele Cardoso (his brother-in-law) formed a firm under the name Moreno Fils and Co., Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 5, ASL, Livorno.

  28. 28.

    Funaro, “Il ruolo degli ebrei livornesi,” 92.

  29. 29.

    Obituary of Aron Daniele Moreno in L’Unione, 24 December 1897, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 2, ASL, Livorno.

  30. 30.

    Mary Dewhurst Lewis, Divided Rule: Sovereignty and Empire in French Tunisia, 1881–1938 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 47.

  31. 31.

    Lewis, Divided Rule, 59.

  32. 32.

    Certificate of Nationality, 3 January 1883, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 2, ASL, Livorno.

  33. 33.

    Clancy Smith, Mediterraneans, 243.

  34. 34.

    Sarah Abrevaya Stein, “Protected Persons? The Baghdadi Jewish Diaspora, the British State, and the Persistence of Empire,” The American Historical Review 116, 1 (2011): 80–108: 93, 88.

  35. 35.

    Raffaello Moreno to Rosina Corcos, 12 March 1912, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 2, ASL, Livorno.

  36. 36.

    In just one example from the consular records, in 1891, local authorities in Egypt accused Jacob Levi Acobes of “pretending” to have Italian nationality. Jacob Levi Acobes traced his nationality back to his grandfather, born in 1810 in Livorno, and submitted documents from the Jewish community in Livorno as proof to the consulate. Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri (ASMAE), Ambasciata d’Italia in Alessandria d’Egitto, box 40 (1891), Rome, Italy.

  37. 37.

    Pamela Ballinger, “Borders of the Nation, Borders of Citizenship: Italian Repatriation and the Redefinition of National Identity after World War I,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 49, 3 (2007): 713–741: 725.

  38. 38.

    Mark Choate, “Identity Politics and Political Perception in the European Settlement of Tunisia: The French Colony vs. the Italian Colony,” French Colonial History 8 (2007): 97–109: 98.

  39. 39.

    Choate, “Identity Politics and Political Perception in the European Settlement of Tunisia,” 104.

  40. 40.

    R.J.B. Bosworth, Italy and the Wider World: 1860–1960 (New York: Routledge, 2013), 95.

  41. 41.

    Donna Gabaccia, “Is Everywhere Nowhere? Italy’s Transnational Migrations and the Immigrant Paradigm of American History,” Journal of American History 86, 3 (December 1999): 1115–1134: 1116.

  42. 42.

    Consul General to Leone Moreno, 22 March 1906, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 10, ASL, Livorno.

  43. 43.

    Evidence of the Moreno family’s charitable contributions and activities can be found throughout the Moreno Archive, in particular boxes 3, 6, 8, and 10. Archivio della famiglia Moreno, ASL, Livorno.

  44. 44.

    Ugo Moreno to Consul General of Italy, July 1906, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 8, ASL, Livorno.

  45. 45.

    Donna Gabaccia, Italy’s Many Diasporas (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 10.

  46. 46.

    Raffaello Moreno to Consul General of Italy, undated 1898, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 3, ASL, Livorno.

  47. 47.

    Official Bulletin of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Tunis, January–February 1903, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 3, ASL, Livorno.

  48. 48.

    Luigi Einaudi, A Merchant Prince, 10, as quoted in Mark Choate, “Sending States’ Transnational Interventions in Politics, Culture, and Economics: The Historical Example of Italy,” International Migration Review 41, 3 (2007): 743.

  49. 49.

    Raffaello Moreno to Consul General of Italy, undated 1898, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 3, ASL, Livorno.

  50. 50.

    Aron Daniele Moreno to President of Syndicat International de défense des intérêts commerciaux, 12 August 1884, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 2, ASL, Livorno.

  51. 51.

    Consul General to Aron Daniele Moreno, 10 October 1884, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 2, ASL, Livorno.

  52. 52.

    President of Syndicat International de défense des intérêts commerciaux to Aron Daniele Moreno, 14 August 1884, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 2, ASL, Livorno.

  53. 53.

    Mark Choate, “The Tunisia Paradox: Italy’s Strategic Aims, French Imperial Rule, and Migration in the Mediterranean Basin,” California Italian Studies 1 (2010): 1–20: 8.

  54. 54.

    Lewis, Divided Rule, 89.

  55. 55.

    Clancy Smith, Mediterraneans, 268.

  56. 56.

    Teachers to Raffaello Moreno, 4 June 1901, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 3, ASL, Livorno.

  57. 57.

    Dante Alighieri Society of Tunisia Committee to President Prof. Villari, 7 February 1902 as quoted in Choate, “Tunisia Paradox,” 10.

  58. 58.

    Raffaello Moreno, undated, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 3, ASL, Livorno.

  59. 59.

    For more information on the Alliance Israélite Universelle, see: Michael Laskier, The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Jewish Communities of Morocco, 1862–1962 (Albany: State University Press of New York, 1984) and Aron Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey, 1860–1925 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).

  60. 60.

    Report of Dante Alighieri Society ofTunis, 1913–1914, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 3, ASL, Livorno.

  61. 61.

    Report of Dante Alighieri Society ofTunis, 1913–1914, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 3, ASL, Livorno.

  62. 62.

    Ugo Moreno, “Brevi cenni sulle antiche relazioni commerciali degli stati italiani con Tunisi,” Bollettino Ufficiale, n. 13, Sept–Oct 1901, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 6, ASL, Livorno.

  63. 63.

    Founding papers of the Italo-Libica Society, 1913, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 3, ASL, Livorno.

  64. 64.

    During the late nineteenth century, Italy’s imperial interests centered around expanding throughout the Mediterranean basin, and the Italian state looked to establish colonies in North and East Africa. After the disappointment of losing Tunisia, Italy gained Somalia as a protectorate in 1889 and claimed Eritrea as a colony soon after. In 1896, Italy’s defeat to Ethiopian troops at Adowa destroyed the hopes of Italian imperialists until 1911–1912, when Italy went to war with the Ottoman Empire and subsequently gained Libya and the Dodecanese Islands. Bosworth, Italy and the Wider World, 97–99.

  65. 65.

    Lewis, Divided Rule, 129.

  66. 66.

    Lewis, Divided Rule, 129.

  67. 67.

    Ugo Moreno speech to Lega Franco-Italiana della Tunisia, 22 April 1922, Archivio della famiglia Moreno, box 6, ASL, Livorno.

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  1. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Alyssa Reiman

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  1. Queens College and The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY, USA

    Francesca Bregoli

  2. University College London, London, United Kingdom

    Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti

  3. University of Genova, Genova, Italy

    Guri Schwarz

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Reiman, A. (2018). Claiming Livorno: Citizenship, Commerce, and Culture in the Italian Jewish Diaspora. In: Bregoli, F., Ferrara degli Uberti, C., Schwarz, G. (eds) Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89405-8_5

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