Journey to Italy 5784 - Overview of Italian Jewish History

this Torah class is brought to you by Torah anytime.com okay hello hello hello okay good morning everyone sh and welcome everyone hope everybody had an enjoyable flight we're going to have a wonderful time Bez hasem it's going to be an amazing experience really a very uh unique opportunity to visit many of these cities many of these ancient communities and connect with the history of our people and the many G Israel that Grace this country on uh in the airport we met a group of people and they asked us you know what are you are you coming to ski I said no we didn't come we didn't come to ski so what did you come to Italy for so we came to Italy for Jewish history Jewish history there's no Jewish history I said do you know that there are a lot of mikal buried in Italy they said mikum we didn't know there were any ranim at all who ever lived in Italy I said there were only 1,875 renowned who lived in Italy we're not going to have an opportunity to discuss each and every one of them most of them most of them will we're going to try to cover uh now in our opening session I I would like to give you a brief overview on Jewish Italian History and let's start in the very beginning we're going to see perhaps this evening that Italian History already began in the time ofu but practically speaking the Jewish communities began during the time of the second B mikdash perhaps even at the time of Kana they were Jews in Italy in the times of thei and they were notable tan that lived in Italy anybody know tan that lived in Italy you have to is is the gamar qu him and these were two tan that lived in Italy okay so now we're up to the 4th Century the Roman Caesar Constantine moved his Capital to Byzantine in Asia Minor now he calls it Constantinople so now the Roman Empire is divided into two and it's very interesting the Eastern section of the Byzantine Empire until the 10th Century ruled over southern Italy so the southern Italy was ruled over the uh Constantinople under Byzantine the B exclaimed said that to actually emanated from the port cities of Italy so you have we're going to speak later about the episode of the arashan the four captives who they were sent out from Bari Italy and from there the tire of the reine really spread throughout Europe many say tahu was written in Italy many say were written in was written in italyi many claim was written in Italy also the 11th century so the Jewish settlement in the north of Spain then they come to Rome you had somebody by the name of rasan ra we have a lot of RA on the trip who wrote the who composed the medish medish the kimus family in Luca now in the 12th century you have renowned yes yes in manova you have in Verona and then this is very important you have a great reshine in the 12th century who really changed the observance of halaka in Italy his name was rabaya of Tran rabaya of Tran is that name familiar RAB Tran who's RAB sh Tran the tus rid now the tus rid is a very important figure in the history of Italian jewry because later on came the sh the sh had codified theim of Theus where the official Han of Italy is predicated on theim of the codified by the sh so if you wanted to know who do they follow in Italy which reine do they follow in Italy they follow the tus rid who codified it the sh okay now the sh became such a popular Safra that there were made of the you know nowadays we have in Italy their kiter was something called saer T not to be confused with the Tanya of the sh the saer is AIT of the sh the M quotes saer So an example where the tells us that AR shab they would fast because of the burning of the talud in France in 1242 where does that come from Who records that it's recorded by the saer okay 14th century now there's persecution in Europe in France in Germany many ashkenazim they immigrate to north northern Italy and now for the first time you have ashkenazic communities in Italy in Venice in padwa in Ferrara in Verona 15th century Italy is now divided into States republics you have four Chief republics you have Napoli in the South you have the and the south is ruled by the Spanish king of Aragon you have the Republic of the church the paple states which was ruled by the pope Rome anona you have the area the region of manova with its capital capital of manova fenza and then you have the Republic of Venice Venice was not just a city Venice was a republic the Republic of Venice including padaa padwa had a world famous university one of the earliest universities in the world was in padwa people from all over Italy came to the University of padaa most of the G Isel in Italy studied in the university in pwa some of them were even professors in the University in pada now during this period Commerce flourished primarily because Jews went into Banking and the reason why Jews went into banking is because Christians were forbidden to charge interest Jews we're not allowed to charge interest to fellow Jews but to a gentile it's permitted to charge interest so Jews went into the banking industry and economically the Jewish communities flourished they used their money to support shis but it caused a lot of animosity among the Christians when we had to uh harshly collect debts and the priests inflamed their constituents in their D that the Jews were uh charging Usery and we we were oppressing them and now Italy had to make a pivotal decision they could have taken the root of Spain and they could have expelled their uh Jewish citizens but very wisely they realized I they needed doctors they needed Bankers they needed financers they needed the tax money and they decided to allow the Jews to remain but in most cities in Italy the Jews were relegated to the ghetto there's one exception okay if you take anything out of this trip there was one city in Italy where they did not relegate the Jews to the ghetto and this city became the most successful city in in Italy in terms of an economic Center in terms of printing in terms of the flourishing of Tyra and that was lavaro learno was the one city where there were no ghettos so now it's the 16th century and there's a tremendous Spanish influx of Jews they come primarily to Napoli Jews come to Napoli and then they're chased out in 1540 a big dispute arose among two printing presses we're going to talk about uh the printing press which were uh the well-known printing presses you had Cino not to be confused with the Cino gamarra that you used in your youth in order to pass your gamarra test that's not what we're referring to the Cino press was the first press that published garas I believe they P published 23 M now a little trivia what year was the first year the gamaro was published it was published by Cino at the end of the 15th century 1483 okay everyone never forget this the first gar says was published in 1483 and saw it how do you remember that gatria gamar the says the numerical value of gamarra is 1483 it's 243 gamar is 243 and you know to translate a uh Jewish date into the English a secular date you add the year 1240 so gamarra plus 1240 is 1483 the very first gamar was published in 1483 I just saw that uh over the weekend I was very excited to see that the doesn't even make a big deal about it actually you know in the sh of the he has an entry of all the is who ever lived we've been speaking about the Sham lately and he has an entry and he has a listing of all the that were ever published I didn't expect that one of the published was called gamar and the has an entry on gamarra and in the entry on gamar he talks about Cino the Cino press and he spoke about he speaks about the first gamar that was published in the year gamarra so that didn't make my my top 10 list of uh the 10 greatest highlights in the sh but there'll be a maybe a second series that will be that will be in the list okay so a dispute arose between two printing presses in Venice and uh the tomad was accused of containing information that was considered heretical and the pope ordered to burn all the garas in the city now you can imagine that those who were charged with carrying out the burning of the they were not necessarily audite Scholars who could be M between a and a Yi and a tour and a rambam and a b so they in many cases they just burnt any stum that they got their hands on okay in the 17th century restrictions continue Jews in all the big cities there moved to the ghetto as we mentioned there's only one exception learno in the Tuscany region near Pisa the Duke decid Ed that if he's going to build up an economic Center he has to give Jews equality he made the ports dutyfree Morano would not be interrogated all the moros came to learo Leo's success was immediate all the great mines all the great Jews moved to learno it became an economic Center of Commerce of publishing of yiv all the anusim came to Leo from Spain from Port Portugal 18th century very difficult Economic Times in Italy of course the Jews were blamed there was tremendous public pressure to chase the Jews out again LNO is the only city that didn't have restrictions so Venice pwa Rio Rome that was pretty much the end of the success of those cities now in Italy in the 18th century it's just learno and some of the Dukes of the various cities they look at their own cities that had plummeted that were in depression that were in shambles and they look at lerno lerno was a World Center of Commerce and they they start to re-evaluate how they need to treat the Jews 18th century part of Italy is conquered by Austria but it did not gain the Jews New Liberty until Napoleon Napoleon conquered the Jews were given equality and with the downfall of Napoleon situation reverted back to uh a state of persecution until what year when Italy was uh United in 1861 and then that caused a tradition uh a transition even though the Jewish people were given equality nevertheless it greatly affected the yeshivas in Italy because now the yeshivas transitioned into more of a academic and uh a style of study and that is in a certain sense a general overview of Jewish Italian History just by way of introduction and beem will uh dig into many of these time periods and individuals as we uh come along I just want to mention the halakic custom of in was originally they followed the the rambam and then they followed the rulings of the tus rid rabish Shay Tran that is until the ashkenazim came and the ashkenazim developed their own Kil and then Jews came to Italy from Tunis and the Jews from Tunis or Jews from North Africa that came to Italy or or specifically Leo they're called marim marim marim are Jews from North Africa or Tunis that came to Italy in Italy the Jews spoke three primary languages the ashkenazim spoke Yiddish the Italians spoke Italian and the Spaniards spoke Spanish until pretty much Italian dominated uh so we mentioned that originally they filed the rambam then the toid which was codified by the sh and that is until the printing press and the printing press published and disseminated many many volumes and additions of the tour and when the tour came out the tour became very popular um especially in the first editions of the of the Tour by Daniel bomberg the second editions but in the Justinian tour and we're going to talk about the difference in the between the first and second editions of the gamar and the tour we'll take a break now and we'll come back we'll talk about the Renaissance okay you've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by Torah anytime.com