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Living in Exile: Wissenschaft des Judentums and the Study of Religion in Italy (1890s–1930s)

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Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Unlike other Western European countries, the Kingdom of Italy was less attractive for Jews who emigrated westward. Nevertheless, small waves of Jewish immigration reached the country. Among them were notable rabbis and scholars. This chapter investigates Jewish intellectual contributions to the Wissenschaft des Judentums by following the trajectories of Italian-based, Polish scholars and rabbis, typically trained in Germany, and their interactions with Italian Jewish intellectuals influenced by neo-Idealist philosophy. Moreover, it offers insights on how Jews of different religious persuasions, Catholic intellectuals, and secular scholars debated issues concerning the history of religions between the waning of the Liberal regime and the rise of Fascism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a general outline see Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, 3rd edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Ismar Schorch, From Text to Context: The Turn to History in Modern Judaism (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1994). For a general overview: Kerstin von der Krone and Mirjam Thulin, “Wissenschaft in Context: A Research Essay on Wissenschaft des Judentums,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook vol. 58 (2013): 249–280. For an interesting study on the United States see Aaron Hughes, The Study of Judaism: Authenticity, Identity, Scholarship (Albany: SUNY Press, 2013).

  2. 2.

    There is no extensive research on the European production of knowledge in relation to religions, and Judaism in particular. In some countries the process of “scientification” of religion took place in different institutions, including universities, which were reorganized according to a Humboldtian model. Some general remarks can be found in Giovanni Filoramo, Cos’è la religione (Turin: Einaudi, 2004). The production of knowledge about religion is an interesting lens through which to analyze the development of Wissenschaft des Judentums, and more broadly, the intertwined discourse on religion and Christianity, with which it was often entangled. See also Kocku von Stuckrad, The Scientification of Religion: An Historical Study of Discursive Changes, 1800–2000 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014).

  3. 3.

    For a better evaluation of Steinschneider’s work see: Studies on Steinschneider: Moritz Steinschneider and the Emergence of the Science of Judaism in Nineteenth-Century Germany, eds. Reimund Leicht and Gad Freudenthal (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

  4. 4.

    This chapter is the second installment of a work devoted to Christian and Jews in Italy, Wissenschaft des Judentums and historiography of religion. The first introductory part was presented in Oxford, in 2012. See Cristiana Facchini, “The Making of Wissenschaft des Judentums in a Catholic Country. The Case of Italy,” in Wissenschaft des Judentums in Europe: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives, eds. Christian Wiese and Mirjam Thulin (Studia Judaica) (Berlin: De Gruyter, forthcoming).

  5. 5.

    For this purpose see David Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011) and, more specifically, Emanuele D’Antonio, La società udinese e gli ebrei fra la restaurazione e l’età unitaria. Mondi cattolici, emancipazione e integrazione della minoranza ebraica a Udine 1830–1866/1870 (Udine: Pio Paschini, 2012).

  6. 6.

    There might be some similarities with France, although French Catholics were politically more active in organizing political parties. See Pierre Pierrard, Juifs et catholiques français d’Edouard Drumont à Jacob Kaplan, 1886–1994 (Paris: Cerf, 1997).

  7. 7.

    For a general overview see Elisabeth Schächter, The Jews of Italy, 1848–1915 (London and Portland, OH: Vallentine Mitchell, 2011); Corrado Vivanti, ed., Storia d’Italia 11. Storia degli ebrei d’Italia. Dall’emancipazione a oggi, vol. 2 (Turin: Einaudi, 1997).

  8. 8.

    See Cristiana Facchini, David Castelli. Ebraismo e scienze delle religioni tra Otto e Novecento (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2005); Alessandro Guetta, Philosophy and Kabbalah: the Reconciliation of Western Thought and Jewish Esotericism (New York: SUNY Press, 2010 [Italian version 1998]); more recently, Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, Making Italian Jews: Family, Gender, Religion and the Nation (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017 [Italian version 2011]).

  9. 9.

    Facchini, “The Making of Wissenschaft des Judentums.”

  10. 10.

    For some information about Russian émigrés see: Asher Salah, “From Odessa to Florence: Elena Comparetti Raffalovich. A Jewish Russian Woman in Nineteenth-Century Italy,” in Portrait of Italian Jewish Life (1800s–1930s), eds. Tullia Catalan and Cristiana Facchini, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History. Journal of Fondazione CDEC, n.8 November 2015; an interesting insight in Clara Sereni, Il gioco dei regni (Florence: Giunti, 1993).

  11. 11.

    Ludwig’s interview appeared in 1932. Meir Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews: German–Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy, 1922–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); Renzo De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo (Turin: Einaudi, 1961); Michele Sarfatti, Gli ebrei nell’Italia fascista. Vicende, identità, persecuzione (Turin: Einaudi, 2000) and idem, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy: From Equality to Persecution, trans. by John and Anne C. Tedeschi (Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 2006).

  12. 12.

    The foundation of Jewish theological seminaries was a widespread European and then American phenomenon. They were modeled after the Protestant and, sometimes, Catholic theological seminaries, and mainly meant to form an educated and modern religious leadership. For Breslau see Das jüdisch-theologische Seminar (Fränckelsche Stiftung) zu Breslau, am Tage seines fünfundzwanzigjährigen Bestehens, den 10. August 1879 (Breslau, 1879); Zur Geschichte des Jüdisch-Theologischen Seminars, in Programm zur Eröffnung des Jüdisch-Theologischen Seminars (Breslau, 1854).

  13. 13.

    Gennaro Sasso, Benedetto Croce. La ricerca della dialettica (Naples: Morano, 1975); Guido Verucci, Idealisti all’Indice. Croce, Gentile e la condanna del Sant’Uffizio (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2006); Girolamo Cotroneo, Croce filosofo italiano (Florence: Le Lettere, 2015); Gabriele Turi, Giovanni Gentile. Una biografia (Florence: Giunti Editore, 1995); Alessandra Tarquini, Il Gentile dei fascisti: gentiliani e antigentiliani nel regime fascista (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2009).

  14. 14.

    For a broader picture see Hans Kippenberg, Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte. Religionswissenschaft und Moderne (München: C.H. Beck, 1997). There are a number of specific contributions based on national historiography.

  15. 15.

    On Scholem’s intellectual contribution to the study of religion see Steven Wasserstrom, Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade and Henri Corbin at Eranos (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); David Biale, Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); Harold Bloom, ed., Gershom Scholem (New York: Chelsea Books, 1987); Joseph Dan, Gershom Scholem and the Mystical Dimension of Jewish History (New York: New York University Press, 1988); Paul Mendes-Flohr, ed., Gershom Scholem: The Man and his Work (New York and Jerusalem: SUNY Press, 1994); Amir Engel, Gershom Scholem: an Intellectual Biography (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2017). On psychology and religion see the comparison between Jung and Freud in Michael Palmer, Freud and Jung on Religion (London and New York: Routledge, 2003).

  16. 16.

    William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: Longmans Green & Co., 1902).

  17. 17.

    See Cristiana Facchini, “Narrating, Visualizing, Performing, and Feeling a Religion. On Representations of Judaism,” in Dynamics of Religion: Past and Present, eds. Christoph Bochinger and Jörg Rüpke (together with Elisabeth Begemann), Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 67 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 273–296.

  18. 18.

    Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole, Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza (New York: Schocken, 2011); Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land (New York: Vintage Books, 1992); Janet Soskice, The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels (New York: Vintage Books, 2009).

  19. 19.

    Cyrus Adler, Solomon Schechter: A Biographical Sketch (Philadelphia: The American Jewish Yearbook, 5677/1916). Schechter developed the notion of “Catholic Israel.” See Solomon Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 3 vols. (London: A. & C. Black, 1896–1924). On the Conservative movement in Judaism: Michael R. Cohen, The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter’s Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012); Massimo Giuliani, “Gli Ebrei Conservative negli Stati Uniti e il Jewish Theological Seminary,” in Le religioni e il mondo moderno, ed. by David Bidussa, Ebraismo, vol. 2 (Turin: Einaudi, 2008), 385–405.

  20. 20.

    Lionella Viterbo, “La nomina del rabbino Margulies: Un ‘excursus’ nella Firenze ebraica di fine Ottocento,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 3, 59 (1993): 67–89.

  21. 21.

    Attilio Milano, “Un secolo di stampa ebraica in Italia. Scritti in onore di Dante Lattes,” Rassegna Mensile di Israel XII (1938): 96–136; Ferrara degli Uberti, Making Italian Jews, 24.

  22. 22.

    Elio Toaff, “La rinascita spirituale degli ebrei italiani nei primi decenni del secolo,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel, nn. 7–12, XLVII (1981): 63–73; Simonetta Della Seta Torrefranca, “Identità religiosa e identità nazionale nell’ebraismo italiano del Novecento,” in Italia Judaica. Gli ebrei nell’Italia unita, 1870–1945, Atti del IV convegno internazionale, Siena 12–16 giugno 1989 (Rome: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, 1993), 263–272.

  23. 23.

    Lionella Viterbo, Spigolando nell’archivio della comunità ebraica di Firenze (Florence: Giuntina, 1997); Sara Airoldi, “Practices of Cultural Nationalism. Alfonso Pacifici and the Jewish Renaissance in Italy (1910–1916),” in Portrait of Italian Jewish Life (1800s–1930s), eds. Catalan and Facchini, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History. Journal of Fondazione CDEC, n.8 November 2015 (www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus.php?id=367); on Italian Zionism see Alberto Cavaglion, “Tendenze nazionali e albori sionistici,” in Storia d’Italia. Annali XI: Gli Ebrei in Italia, ed. Corrado Vivanti, vol. 2 (Turin: Einaudi, 1997), 1291–1320; Simonetta Della Seta, Daniel Carpi, “Il movimento sionistico,” in Storia d’Italia. Annali XI: Gli Ebrei in Italia, vol. 2, 1321–1368; Ferrara degli Uberti, Making Italian Jews, 182–195; Arturo Marzano, Una terra per rinascere. Gli ebrei italiani e l’emigrazione in Palestina prima della guerra (1920–1940) (Genoa-Milan: Marietti, 2003). For a general approach Michael Berkowitz, Zionist Culture and West European Jewry before the First World War (Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 2003); Georges Bensoussan, Une histoire intellectuelle et politique du sionisme (Paris: Fayard, 2001).

  24. 24.

    Samuel H. Margulies, Saadja Alfajûmi’s arabische Psalmen-Üebersetzung (Breslau, 1884); idem, Discorsi sacri (Florence: Galletti e Cassuto, 1905); idem, Dichter und Patriot: Eine Studie ueber das Leben und die Werke D. Levis (Trier: Sigmund Mayer, 1896); idem, Discorsi e scritti varii (Florence: Israel, 1923). On David Levi see Francesca Sofia, “Gli ebrei risorgimentali fra tradizione biblica, libera muratoria e nazione,” in Storia d’Italia: La massoneria (Annali 21), ed. Gian Mario Cazzaniga (Turin: Einaudi, 2006), 244–265.

  25. 25.

    See Leo Neppi Modona, “17 lettere di S. H. Margulies a David Levi,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 28 no. 2 (1962): 62–75.

  26. 26.

    Among his works, see Ismar Elbogen, Der jüdische Gottesdienst in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Leipzig, 1913); idem, Die neueste Construction der jüdischen Geschichte (Breslau, 1902); idem, In commemorazione di S. D. Luzzatto (Florence, 1901). Christian Wiese, Challenging Colonial Discourse: Jewish Studies and Protestant Theology in Wilhelmine Germany (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

  27. 27.

    Salo W. Baron, “Hirsch, Peretz Chajes,” Encyclopaedia Judaica vol. 5 (1971–1972): 325–326.

  28. 28.

    Alberto Latorre, Il carteggio Zolli—Pettazzoni (1925–1956) (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2015).

  29. 29.

    Wiese, Challenging Colonial Discourse.

  30. 30.

    Latorre, Il carteggio Zolli—Pettazzoni.

  31. 31.

    See, for example, his book on the Pharisees; Wiese, Challenging Colonial Discourse.

  32. 32.

    Cristiana Facchini, David Castelli.

  33. 33.

    See Umberto Cassuto, “Hirsch Perez Chajes,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 3 no. 5 (1928): 218–232; Elias S. Artom, Umberto Cassuto and Israel Zoller, Miscellanea di studi ebraici in memoria di H. P. Chajes (Florence, 1930); Salo W. Baron, “Hirsch Perez Chajes,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 5, Jerusalem 1971/72, 325–326; On Chajes see David N. Myers, “Was there a ‘Jerusalem School’? An Inquiry into the First Generation of Historical Researchers at the Hebrew University” (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/myers/Was%20there%20a%20Jerusalem%20School.pdf).

  34. 34.

    Baron, “Hirsch Peretz Chajes”; some references also in Shmuel Almog, Jehuda Reinharz and Anita Shapira, eds., Zionism and Religion (Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 1998), 154 ff.

  35. 35.

    Baron, “ Hirsch Peretz Chajes.”

  36. 36.

    Robert G. Weisbord and Wallace P. Sillanpoa, The Chief Rabbi, the Pope, and the Holocaust: An Era in Vatican–Jewish Relations (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2008); Gabriele Rigano, Il “caso Zolli”: L’itinerario di un intellettuale in bilico tra fedi, culture e nazioni (Milan: Guerini e Associati, 2006). It is difficult to fully grasp the reasons that drove Zoller to conversion. He himself later constructed a self-explanation typical of conversion narratives. For relevant insight on this topic see John Connelly, From Enemy to Brother: the Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933–1965 (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2012); Todd Endelman, Leaving the Jewish Fold: Conversion and Radical Assimilation in Modern Jewish History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015).

  37. 37.

    On this, see his correspondence with Raffaele Pettazzoni, the dean of the history of religions in Italy: Alberto Latorre, “La storia delle religioni tra ‘ragioni di prudenza’ e ‘ragion di stato’: Uno spaccato della ricerca storico-religiosa al tempo del fascismo e della reazione anti-modernista nella corrispondenza di Israel Zoller con Raffaele Pettazzoni,” Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni 77 no. 1 (2011): 65–85; idem, Il carteggio Zolli—Pettazzoni.

  38. 38.

    There is a brief discussion of Sonne in Salo W. Baron, “Isaiah Sonne, 1887–1960,” Jewish Social Studies 23 no. 2 (April 1961): 130–132.

  39. 39.

    On the relationship between Jews and the Italian colonial experience see Renzo De Felice, Ebrei in un paese arabo. Gli ebrei nella Libia contemporanea tra colonialismo, nazionalismo arabo e sionismo (Milan: Giuffrè, 1982); some information in Martino Contu, Nicola Melis, Giovannino Pinna, eds., Ebraismo e rapporti con le culture del Mediterraneo nei secoli XVIII–XX (Florence: Giuntina, 2003).

  40. 40.

    Michael A. Meyer, Judaism within Modernity: Essays on Jewish History and Religion (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001), 345–361.

  41. 41.

    Abraham S. Halkin, “Isaiah Sonne (1887–1960), the Historian,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 29 (1960–1961): 9–15.

  42. 42.

    For South Europe see: Tullia Catalan and Marco Dogo, eds., The Jews and the Nation-States of Southeastern Europe from the 19th Century to the Great Depression: Combining Viewpoints on a Controversial Story (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2016); 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).

  43. 43.

    Baron, “Isaiah Sonne 1887–1960.”

  44. 44.

    Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Fantasmi ritrovati (Naples: Liguori, 2004), 59–60: “Da due generazioni la mia famiglia era staccata dalla pratica della religione ebraica, nella linea paterna addirittura da tre, poiché tra i nonni materni di mio padre ai primi dell’Ottocento avevano accolto i principii anticonfessionali e umanitari del secolo dei lumi, e questi si erano trasmessi integralmente a mio padre, ammodernati alquanto dal liberalismo politico ed economico della destra storica. […] Fu così che, tra la fine del ginnasio e il principio del liceo, cominciai a studiare da me un po’ di ebraico, a immergermi nella lettura dell’Antico e del Nuovo Testamento, a dare la caccia a ogni sorta di libri che trattassero di religione e di storia delle religioni, valendomi sopra tutto di quelli che trovavo in casa, raccolti per la più gran parte da un mio trisavolo e da un mio prozio e nei quali si rispecchiava con fedeltà lo sviluppo dell’illuminismo settecentesco verso il positivismo ottocentesco attraverso l’esperienza del romanticismo: tre tappe segnate da tre vite di Gesù che trovai nella biblioteca domestica e mi affrettai a leggere avidamente: quelle del barone d’Holbach, di David Friedrich Strauss, di Ernest Renan.” The title of the lengthy chapter is “Un ebreo tra i modernisti” (A Jew among the Modernists), which refers mainly to his friends many of whom were Catholics or scholars of Christianity, like for example Luigi Salvatorelli, to whom the book was dedicated. The first edition was published in 1966, a year before his death.

  45. 45.

    On Jews as orientalists see Ivan D. Kalman and Derek Penslar, eds., Orientalism and the Jews (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2005); Italian orientalism has not yet been critically analyzed. The case of Levi Della Vida is very relevant within the context of scholarship on Islam in Europe, also as a “Jewish” scholar. Levi Della Vida was himself very critical of Said’s interpretation of “Orientalism.” See Cristiana Facchini, “Orientalistica ed ebraismo: Una storia ai margini. David Castelli e Giorgio Levi Della Vida,” in La storiografia storico-religiosa italiana tra la fine dell’800 e la seconda guerra mondiale, eds. Mario Mazza and Natale Spineto (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2014), 111–139.

  46. 46.

    Bruna Soravia, Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Dizionario biografico degli italiani 64 (2005), http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/levi-della-vida-giorgio_(Dizionario-Biografico); Levi Della Vida, Fantasmi ritrovati.

  47. 47.

    Ignazio Guidi (1844–1935) was one of the most important Italian orientalists of his time. His scholarly production was extensive and highly specialized, although it can be divided into three main areas: literature of the Oriental Churches, History and literature of Ethiopic, Arabic-Islamic literature. He also worked as a translator of juridical texts from Libya and was, along with many of his contemporaries, a strong supporter of the Italian colonial enterprise. See Bruna Soravia, Ignazio Guidi, Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 61 (2004): http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ignazio-guidi_res-6635a523-87ee-11dc-8e9d-0016357eee51_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ and eadem, “Ascesa e declino dell’orientalismo scientifico in Italia,” in Il mondo visto dall’Italia, eds. Agostino Giovagnoli and Giorgio Del Zanna (Milan: Guerini: 2005), 271–286. His influential article-Ignazio Guidi, “Della sede primitiva dei popoli semiti,” in Memorie dell’Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, cl. di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, s. 3, IV [1879], 566–615—was discussed by Levi Della Vida in 1938 in his lectures at the Collège de France. See Facchini, “Orientalistica ed ebraismo: Una storia ai margini.”

  48. 48.

    For a cultural approach to the study of the historical Jesus see Halvor Moxnes, Jesus and the Rise of Nationalism: A New Quest for the Nineteenth Century (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012); on Renan: Robert Priest, The Gospel according to Renan: Reading, Writing, and Religion in Nineteenth-Century France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

  49. 49.

    “Dual exile” is a term I borrow from Arnaldo Momigliano’s review of Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Fantasmi ritrovati (Venice: Neri Pozza, 1966), in Quarto contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico (Rome: Ed. Storia e Letteratura, 1969), 663–665; published previously in Rivista storica italiana 78 (1966): 740–442.

  50. 50.

    Gabriele Turi, Il mecenate, il filosofo e il gesuita. L’«Enciclopedia italiana», specchio della nazione (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002).

  51. 51.

    His depiction of Islam is quite interesting as it runs against much of Said’s claims in his Orientalism (1978).

  52. 52.

    Alberto Soggin, “Umberto Cassuto,” Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 21 (1978) (http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/umberto-cassuto_(Dizionario-Biografico)/).

  53. 53.

    Umberto Cassuto, Gli ebrei di Firenze nell’età del Rinascimento (Florence: Galletti, 1918).

  54. 54.

    Facchini, David Castelli. Castelli accepted, even if with some scepticism, Wellhausen’s interpretation of the biblical material.

  55. 55.

    Julius Wellhausen was probably one of the most influential biblical scholars of the modern age. His work has often been criticized by Jewish scholars. See Aly Elrefaei, Wellhausen and Kaufmann: Ancient Israel and its Religious History in the Works of Julius Wellhausen and Yehezkel Kaufmann (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015); Anders Gerdmar, Roots of Theological Antisemitism: German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann (Leiden: Brill, 2009); Wiese, Challenging Colonial Discourse, 217ff. We should therefore take Cassuto’s interpretation of the Bible as a conservative answer to Julius Wellhausen and its reception in Italy.

  56. 56.

    See Myers, “Was there a ‘Jerusalem School’?”

  57. 57.

    Arnaldo Momigliano, Pagine ebraiche, revised 2nd edition (Rome: Ed. Storia e letteratura, 2016).

  58. 58.

    Enrico Ghidetti, Attilio Momigliano, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 75 (2011) (http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/attilio-momigliano_(Dizionario-Biografico)/).

  59. 59.

    Carlo Dionisotti, Ricordi della scuola italiana (Rome: Ed. Storia e letteratura, 1998), 385ff. For De Sanctis see: Giorgio Boatti, Preferirei di no. Le storie dei dodici professori che si opposero a Mussolini (Turin: Einaudi, 2001); Helmut Goetz, Il giuramento rifiutato. I docenti universitari e il regime fascista (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 2000).

  60. 60.

    On this topic see Mario Mazza, “Attualismo, storicismo, modernismo. Adolfo Omodeo e la storia delle origini cristiane,” in La storiografia storico-religiosa italiana tra la fine dell’800 e la seconda guerra mondiale, 45–77.

  61. 61.

    Simon Levis Sullam insisted upon Momigliano’s Jewish identity and offered an interesting portrait of the young Momigliano. See Simon Levis Sullam, “Arnaldo Momigliano e la nazionalizzazione parallela: autobiografia, religione, storia,” Passato e presente 70 (2007): 59–82. On Momigliano as a scholar of Judaism, see Tessa Rajak, “Momigliano and Judaism,” in The Legacy of Momigliano, eds. Charles Burnett and Jill Kraye (London and Turin: The Warburg Institute—Nino Aragno Editore, 2014), 89–106; a remarkable and insightful interpretation of Momigliano’s scholarship is to be found in Peter Brown, “Arnaldo Dante Momigliano, 1908–1987,” in Proceedings of the British Academy LXXIV (1988): 405–442.

  62. 62.

    The review of Cecil Roth, The Jews of Venice (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1930) which is usually mentioned in reference to the “parallel nationalization” is now in Momigliano, Pagine ebraiche. Momigliano reviewed the Italian translation of Roth’s book which was published by Dante Lattes in 1933.

  63. 63.

    Albert Schweitzer, Geschichte der Jesu-Leben-Forschung (Stuttgart: UTB, 1984).

  64. 64.

    David F. Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet, 2 vols. (Tubingen: Osiander, 1835–1836); Joseph Salvador, Jésus-Christ et sa doctrine. Histoire de la naissance de l’Église, de son organisation et de ses origines pendant le premier siècle, 2 vols. (Bruxelles: Société belge de Librarie Hauman et Compagnie, 1838); Francesca Sofia, “Gerusalemme tra Roma e Parigi. Joseph Salvador e le origini del cristianesimo,” Annali di storia dell’esegesi 21/2 (2004): 645–62; Matthew B. Hoffman, From Rebel to Rabbi: Reclaiming Jesus and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007).

  65. 65.

    See Susannah Heschel, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997); on Graetz and early Christianity, Michael Brenner, Prophets of the Past: Interpreters of Jewish History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), Chapter 2. The Essenes’ hypothesis of the rise of Christianity was developed also by the Italian Elia Benamozegh. Some remarks on this topic in Cristiana Facchini, “The immortal traveler’. How historiography saved Judaism,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte (forthcoming 2018) and Facchini, David Castelli.

  66. 66.

    A preliminary remark on this debate in Alberto Cavaglion, “La linea cenobitica e le aporie dell’ebraismo laico,” Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa XLVIII/3 (2012): 625–634; Laura Demofonti, La riforma nell’Italia del primo Novecento: gruppi e riviste di ispirazione evangelica (Rome: Storia e letteratura, 2003); Facchini, “Orientalistica ed ebraismo.”

  67. 67.

    Facchini, “Orientalistica ed ebraismo.”

  68. 68.

    See Facchini, David Castelli.

  69. 69.

    Facchini, David Castelli, Chapter 3. At the beginning of the twentieth century many notions of messianism circulated.

  70. 70.

    According to Lattes, the universal ethical dimension of Christianity was utopian.

  71. 71.

    Giorgio Levi Della Vida, “Cristianesimo ed Ebraismo,” Bilychnis 17 anno X (1921): 395–399. He repeats the same in his Fantasmi ritrovati. Freud’s notion of “der Narzissmus der kleinen Differenzen” first appeared in Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (1930) and then in Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion (1939). Sigmund Freud, “Civilization and its Discontents,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 21 (London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1962).

  72. 72.

    Claude G. Montefiore, Gesù Cristo nel pensiero ebraico contemporaneo. Introduzione di Felice Momigliano (Genoa: A.F. Formiggini, 1913).

  73. 73.

    Luigi Salvatorelli, Da Locke a Reitzenstein: l’indagine storica delle origini cristiane (Cosenza: L. Giordano, 1988); Gabriele Boccaccini, “Gesù ebreo e cristiano: sviluppi e prospettive di ricerca sul Gesù storico in Italia, dall’Ottocento ad oggi,” Henoch, 29 (2007): 105–154; Samuele Nicoli, La cultura cattolica e gli studi religiosi in Italia fra Ottocento e Novecento (http://manfrediana2.racine.ra.it/files/lanzoni2011/nicoli.pdf).

  74. 74.

    See Luca Arcari, “La comparazione come metodo di selezione ‘cristianocentrica’ in Wilhelm Bousset. La ‘sostanziale differenza’ del giudaismo nel comparativismo storico-religioso tra Ottocento e Novecento,” in Non solo verso Oriente. Studi sull’ebraismo in onore di Pier Cesare Ioly Zorattini, eds. Maddalena Del Bianco Cotrozzi, Riccardo Di Segni and Marcello Massenzio (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 2014), 597–621.

  75. 75.

    On Jewish answers to this rhetorical and historical narrative see Wiese, Challenging Colonial Discourse. For a broader assessment of the conflict over the interpretation of Biblical religion, ancient Judaism, and early Christianity see Gerdmar, Roots of Theological Antisemitism.

  76. 76.

    Israel Zoller, Il Nazareno. Studi di esegesi neotestamentaria alla luce dell’aramaico e del pensiero rabbinico (Udine: Istituto delle Edizioni Accademiche, 1938); it was published as Eugenio Zolli, Christus (Rome: AVE, 1946). Latorre, Il carteggio Zolli—Pettazzoni.

  77. 77.

    Hirsch P. Chajes, Markus-Studien (Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke, 1899).

  78. 78.

    See Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: In the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

  79. 79.

    Neta Stahl, Jesus among the Jews: Representation and Thought (London and New York: Routledge, 2012).

  80. 80.

    Ibid., 4.

  81. 81.

    Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times & Teaching (New York: Macmillan, 1925). It is worth mentioning that Klausner, who also was a Jew from Eastern Europe, published his Jesus in Hebrew. The English translation was made by a Christian Zionist, the Reverend Herbert Danby. Klausner’s work reached international acclaim. On Klausner see Dan Jaffé, Jésus sous la plume des historiens juifs du xxe siècle. Approche historique, perspectives historiographiques, analyses méthodologiques (Paris: Cerf, 2009) and the autobiographical novel of Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness. Engl. Transl. (London: Chatto and Windus, 2004).

  82. 82.

    See also Jaffé, Jésus sous la plume des historiens juifs.

  83. 83.

    Exactly what Levi Della Vida thought is impossible to recover through a historical analysis.

  84. 84.

    Zoller, Il Nazareno.

  85. 85.

    Sarfatti, Gli ebrei nell’Italia fascista. On Italian anti-Semitism and Catholics see Giovanni Miccoli, Antisemitismo e cattolicesimo (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2013); Elena Mazzini, Ostilità convergenti. Stampa diocesana, razzismo e antisemitismo nell’Italia fascista (1937–1939) (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2013).

  86. 86.

    Giuseppe Ricciotti, Vita di Gesù (Rome: Rizzoli, 1941). On Ricciotti’s anti-Semitic articles see Cristiana Facchini, “Culture cattoliche ed ebrei dopo la Shoah. Riflessioni a margine di due recenti pubblicazioni,” Annali di storia dell’esegesi 29/1 (2012): 149–173. His articles were published in L’avvenire d’Italia, a Catholic daily newspaper based in Bologna.

  87. 87.

    Ernesto Buonaiuti in Religio. Latorre, Il carteggio Zolli—Pettazzoni.

  88. 88.

    See Michael Stausberg, “Raffaele Pettazzoni,” in The Study of Religion Under the Impact of Fascism, ed. Horst Junginger (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), 365–395.

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    Cristiana Facchini

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    Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti

  3. University of Genova, Genova, Italy

    Guri Schwarz

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Facchini, C. (2018). Living in Exile: Wissenschaft des Judentums and the Study of Religion in Italy (1890s–1930s). 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_6

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