Puglia and the Roots of Modern Judaism 

Fabrizio Lelli (University of Rome La Sapienza)

Co-sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute, the American Sephardi Federation, and Fordham University

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Puglia, the long stripe of land extending along the south-eastern Adriatic shore of the Italian Peninsula, played a fascinating, but often overlooked role in Jewish intellectual history. Indeed, from many viewpoints, Puglia can be deemed the birthplace of modern Western European Judaism. In Bari, Trani, Oria, and Otranto — the cities of Puglia where very significant Jewish academies thrived from late antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages – the legacy of eastern Mediterranean Judaism was adopted, adapted to the western diaspora, and later exported to other regions. Thus, thanks to this significant intellectual transfer of knowledge, Greek, Byzantine, Arabic, and earlier Jewish materials reached the most distant areas of northern and western Europe, where they contributed to the shaping of modern Judaism.

Fabrizio Lelli is Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at “La Sapienza” University in Rome. His research mainly focuses on the philosophical and mystical literature of late Medieval and Early Modern Italian Jewish authors, and on the Southern Italian Apulian Jewish communities and their relationship with the Levant. He has published monographs, essays, and translations of Hebrew works composed by Yohanan Alemanno (c. 1434 – c. 1506), Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano (c. 1440 – c. 1510), Elijah Menahem Halfan (late 15th C. – c. 1541). He has edited monographs and collective volumes on the multiple intellectual identities of Apulian Jewish scholars. In recent years, while teaching at the University of Salento (Lecce), he has launched a project aimed at preserving the memory of the Jewish refugees in the United Nations DP (Displaced Persons) Transit Camps, which were operational in Southern Italy after WWII. He is Co-Founder and Director of the Jewish Museum in Lecce, Italy.