Newsletter Subtitle
NEWS & NEXT
ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM
Israeli Association for Italian Jewish Studies


February 25, 2009

Sala Cimbalista, University of Tel-Aviv

Sources in the Study of Judaism
Prof. Shlomo Simonsohn (Tel Aviv University)
Pinhas Roth
(Hebrew University)

Stefania Roncolato (Universit� di Verona)
Mauro Perani
(Universit� di Bologna)

Shalva Weil
(Hebrew University)


Of Woman and Love
Prof. Moises Orfali
(Bar Ilan University)

Eli Gurfinkel
(Bar Ilan University)

Sandra Debenedetti Stow (Bar Ilan University)
Yaakov Mascetti
(Bar Ilan University)

Marina Arbib
(Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center)


Jewish Thought in the Middle Age
Prof. Mauro Perani (Universit� di Bologna)
Mariuccia Krasner
Lea Dovev
(Bar Ilan University and Bezalel Academy)

Isaac Hershkowitz
(Bar Ilan University)


Jews and Christians in Modern Times
Prof. Beniamin Arbel
(Tel Aviv University)

Katherine Aron-Beller
(Gratz College)

Alex Grab
(University of Maine)

Davide Mano
(Tel Aviv University)

Giuseppe Speciale (Universit� di Catania)

Information: Dott. Asher Salah,  [email protected]

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Dear Friends,
Centro Primo Levi is proud to present another series of extraordinary talks in cooperation with the Herbert D. Katz Center of Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. After the success of the past years, we look forward to raising new debates in an open public forum and to ensure that the Jewish experience through centuries and lands is appreciated not as an isolated field, but as an integral and dynamic component in the history of the ideas.
Thanks to the vision of many world-class scholars and the continuous support of the Cahnman Foundation, our public program continues to promote the cultural history of the Jews of Italy and to foster awareness of their role of mediators between the Mediterranean countries and Northern Europe.




JEWS, COMMERCE AND CULTURE 

FEBRUARY 18 | 6 pm
Center for Jewish History, 15 W 16 St.
See full program

THE FAMILIARITY OF STRANGERS: THE SEPHARDIC DIASPORA IN LIVORNO.  Francesca Trivellato | Yale University

Visiting Livorno in 1719, a French traveler called it "a paradise for Jews."  Expelled from Spain and Portugal, many Sephardic merchants and their families settled in this Tuscan port-city under the protection of the Medici Grand Dukes. From Livorno, they traded with regions near and far, making a decisive contribution to the city economy.  But what did toleration mean in the age of the Counter Reformation? And how did Jewish merchants forge bonds of business trust with non-Jews for the lucrative exchange of luxury items coming from as far as the Indian Ocean?  The talk will explore the mixture of toleration and exclusion that characterized the pre-modern world of international commerce.

Francesca Trivellato is Professor of History at Yale University. She specializes in the social and economic history of Italy, continental Europe and the Mediterranean in the early modern period. She is the author of The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (Yale University Press, 2009) and of a book on Venetian glass manufacturing (Fondamenta dei Vetrai: Lavoro, tecnologia e mercato a Venezia tra Sei e Settecento, Rome: Donzelli, 2000). She has also published several essays on craft guilds, women's work, and merchant networks.

A joint series of Centro Primo Levi and the Herbert Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

This the third joint series presented in New York This undertakes a difficult topic that has long been a centerpiece of anti-Semitic rhetoric and has more recently also entered the grammar of self-representation: Jewish society as mercantile,  transnational  and reliant  upon money as a source of power. The series will take an in-depth look at Jewish banking, trading, and economic thinking and discuss the dynamics that connected Italy in a strategic geopolitical position with Northern, Central Europe,  and the countries of the Mediterranean basin.
In the previous years the program explored the cultural intersections of Judaism and Islam and the parallel shaping of the Rabbinical tradition and early Christianity. See "past programs" for details"

About
Inspired by the humanistic legacy of writer and chemist Primo Levi, who survived Auschwitz and defined the place of memory in modern societies, Centro Primo Levi is dedicated to studying the history and culture of Italian Jewry, sharing beyond linguistic borders its current ferments and future perspectives.

With twenty-two centuries of history and a unique tradition of communal diversity, tolerance and integration, the Italian Jewish community is today considered one of the most vital minorities in Europe. Through cooperative policies, programs, networking, grant-making, and publishing, CPL helps individuals and institutions coordinate goals, optimize resources, and ensure that the historical heritage and contemporary ideas of Italian Judaism are accessible through a unified portal.