Dear Readers of Rome,
(I am re-sending this message, as the third link was inactive the first time it was mailed.)
On Wednesday, our topic is "Ghetto Life." While we have touched upon the contested relations between Church and Synagogue previously, we will now analyze that dynamic more carefully, to better follow that story into the modern period.
Please do the following:
(1) Download, print, and read the overview of the Roman Ghetto (historical map included). The papal bull Cum Nimis Absurdum created a ghetto within Rome, thereby altering patterns of city life for both Jews and Gentiles, and profoundly impacting the Jewish community that had lived there since before the time of Jesus.
(2) Download, print, and read the excerpt from Ruderman, Preachers of the Italian Ghetto. Ruderman not only places Italian ghettos into a larger historical context, but he summarizes scholarly arguments in which Jewish culture is "paradoxically" furthered by Christian discrimination - - a perverse dialectic of repression and expression.
(3) Download, print, and read the excerpts from Raz-Krakotzkin, The Censor, The Editor, and the Text, which focuses on the burning of the Talmud. Raz-Krakotzkin also sets this incident into a larger context, examining the wider role of the papacy in censorship.
(I am re-sending this message, as the third link was inactive the first time it was mailed.)
On Wednesday, our topic is "Ghetto Life." While we have touched upon the contested relations between Church and Synagogue previously, we will now analyze that dynamic more carefully, to better follow that story into the modern period.
Please do the following:
(1) Download, print, and read the overview of the Roman Ghetto (historical map included). The papal bull Cum Nimis Absurdum created a ghetto within Rome, thereby altering patterns of city life for both Jews and Gentiles, and profoundly impacting the Jewish community that had lived there since before the time of Jesus.
(2) Download, print, and read the excerpt from Ruderman, Preachers of the Italian Ghetto. Ruderman not only places Italian ghettos into a larger historical context, but he summarizes scholarly arguments in which Jewish culture is "paradoxically" furthered by Christian discrimination - - a perverse dialectic of repression and expression.
(3) Download, print, and read the excerpts from Raz-Krakotzkin, The Censor, The Editor, and the Text, which focuses on the burning of the Talmud. Raz-Krakotzkin also sets this incident into a larger context, examining the wider role of the papacy in censorship.
* * * * *
How do these sources inform our understanding of Rome? We are very much interested in your own responses, but allow me to highlight some aspects we might consider:
As noted earlier, Roman Jews played a part in the ceremony for crowning a new pope, in which they hand the pontiff a Torah scroll that he lets fall to the ground. Samuel Gruber argues this exemplifies "selective inclusion," for Jews were being acknowledged as denizens of the City even while they were being ritually humiliated and subjected to papal authority. This pattern of selective inclusion continues on and deepens, perhaps darkens, in the Counter-Reformation, when certain popes authorized new forms of discrimination against the Jews. So Jews are simultaneously forced to be Other, physically set aside from Christians and marked as "outside" of proper society, and yet (as Raz-Krakotzkin argues) Jews are increasingly included within the purview of the Church, as their sacred texts and very persons are treated more and more akin to those of Christian heretics.
gs
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