ITALIA JUDAICA. Atti del I Convegno internazionale. Bari 18-22 ...

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I
ISADORE TWERSKY
T o my dear brothers
Rabbi Menachem Nochum and Rabbi Moshe
and their famili0s.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF ITALIAN SAGES
TO RABBINIC LITERATURE
There are fout major areas for, and desiderata in, the scholarly investigation
af 'the contribution af Italian sages to Rabbinic Literature' l : the reconstruction,
retrievaI, ancl criticaI pubIication of .Il the works of Italian sages in the vast
fieId of rabbinics '; the patient, fulI-orbed Iiterary and conceptuaI assessment
af their worth, originality, and importance (for preservation and innovation,
substantive as weII .s methodologicaI) by comp"ative study, by developing
an aII-encompassing perspective which brings into focus tbe works of Spanish,
Provençal, French and German sages and, for the later period, Polish and
Turkish authors 3; the analytic determination whether there exists a distinctive
Italian school with its speciaI features, its chain of tradition from teacher to di-
l I have retained the originaI farro af this lecture, which was, af course, undocumented,
and have naw added only some essential bibliographic refetences or elaborations af a few
points made in the text. Generai background is available in the standard works: A. .MILA­
NO, Bibliotheca historica italo-judaica, Florence 1954; C. ROTH, History 01 the Jews in Italy,
Philadelprua 1946; J. STARR, Jews in the Byzantine Empire, Athens 1939; A. SHARF, Byzantine
Jewry Iram Justinian to the Paurth Crusade, London 1971; H. VOGELSTEIN-P. RIEGER,
Geschichte der Juden in Rom, Berlin 1895; H. GROSS, Isaac ben Malki-Zedek und seine
suditalischen Zeitgenossen, in Magazin lur judische Geschichte und Literatur, II (1875);
the big works of 1. HALEVI, S. RApPOPORT, L H. WEISS, L. ZUNZ; S. ASSAF in Ha-Shiloap
XXXV (1918), pp. 12-17, 275-286; the introduction of A. Wertheimer tO' the Bible cammentaries
af R. Isaiah (see belO\v, n. 2); and the items dted below, esp. nn. 3, 5; also,
M . .MARGALIYOT (ed.), Halakot Kezuvot, Jerusalem 1942; In., Hilkot Eretz Yisra'el min ha­
GeniZah, ]erusalem 1973.
2 Cognate fields are also indispensable for a balanced-judiciaus appraisai af rabbinics;
e.g., far purposes of tms paper, see the Bible commentaries O'f R. ISAIAH aF TRANI (EIder
or Younger) (ed. A. WERTHEIMER), Jerusalem 1959; the recent1y published article by E.
FLEISCHER, Hedweta ... Rishon le-Pay)lefaney Italiyab, in Italia, II (1981), pp. 7-30, and the
new editian af Bilie1 of Verona, Sèfer Tagmulè ha-Nèfesh (ed. G. SERMONETA), Jerusalem
1981.
3 Some basie monographs bring into the picture; e.g. E. URBACH, Ba (alei ha-Tosalal
the recently published A. GROSSMANN, FJakhmei Ashkenaz ha-Rishonim, Jerusalem 1981,
or the oider work by GUEDEMANN, Ha-Torah weha-FJayyim, 3 voli.) Warsaw 1898.
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