HIST 440 – History of the Jews in Italy: Renaissance to the Present

The Jewish community in Italy is the most ancient among the Jewish Diasporas that have remained continuously up until today. This course will focus on the social, economic and cultural interactions between the Jews and their surrounding milieu in Italy. It will examine the shifts between integration and segregation that the Jews experienced, especially starting from the Renaissance until the modern period. We will focus especially on topics such as: Jewish intellectual life during the Renaissance; the Ghettos; Emancipation and its particular expressions in Italy; Jews under Fascism and Nazism; Italian Jewry nowadays.

The objective of the course is to reach a deep understanding of the history and culture of the Jews in Italy, while taking advantage of the physical presence of the students in this area. It aims to expose the students to various types of documentation, including: archival documents, inscriptions on walls, music, paintings, films, oral testimonies and many more. In addition, the course aims to introduce methodological questions which can be applied to Jewish History in general, and to focus on the uniqueness of this Diaspora, in particular.