Italian Influences on Judaism Tunisian
TUNISIAN and Livorno: TENSIONS PARENTS AND
(Paris, Mairie du XVI 5 / 01)
The history of Jewish communities, even more than the peoples of Europe, can be conceived in terms of long duration. You can find Italian influences on Judaism in Tunisia merely to modern times, much less in the contemporary era of nationalities who were born in Italy.
Space .- Muslim
From the ninth century Tunisia is included in all Western Muslim southern Mediterranean encompassing Spain, North Africa and Sicily. The cultural and human links forged between the various regions of the MSP concern particularly their different Jewish communities. They do not s'interrompront, even after the gradual re-Christianization of Spain from the tenth to the fifteenth century and Sicily in the eleventh century. Political and religious disruptions affecting one or the other of these countries will be an opportunity for Jews of other links since turn of the Jews of North Africa in the twelfth century emigrating to Spain, Sicily and Italy , while the Sicilian Jews, then English and Portuguese will settle in the Maghreb the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. The strategic and economic position of Kairouan, a meeting point for caravans between East and West, reflects on Tunis, the gateway to the commercial republics of Italy. In the fourteenth century Tunis was the only place in the Muslim world where all major business houses of Florence had founded branches. Yves Renouard, Tunis was part of the 25 major shopping centers in the world.
recalled already in the fifteenth century the great interplay between the Jewish communities of Tunisia and Sicily. The latter, with 40 000 people is by far the largest. We know from the documents of the Venetian consul in 1470 Ferugeo, Trapani Sicilian Jew based in Tunis, it is awaiting delivery of 18 bales of kosher wine. His father is the head of the Jewish community in Tunis, which opens up unsuspected perspectives on the reciprocal influences, 140 years before the arrival of Livorno. How many Jews Sicilian, after 1497, they emigrated to Tunisia? Under what conditions did they melt? Have not they contributed to the remarkable openness of the Jews of Tunis? Among the merchants in Tunis there is active at that time a man named Calipapa whose name as Galipapa or Galipe be found in Barcelona. But long ago that the emigration of Jews from Spain to the Maghreb began.
In the fifteenth century, the new power Hafsid Tunisia, while the Italians are under pressure from the Turks in the eastern Mediterranean, opens in a tough competition among the Venetians, Genoese and Florentines Control of the Western market. The Genoese are suffering from a bad reputation among Tunisians. They do not keep their commitments contrary to the Venetians. These were first preferred because they provide regular maritime links between Arab East, Spain and Northern Europe. But the Florentines be needed financially thanks to the quality of their currencies and their international banking network.
Livornese The Portuguese in Tunis English .-.
the early seventeenth century, Livorno, who are still Hispano-Portuguese much more than Italian, certainly enjoy the tradition of their merchants have always been accustomed to big business to the East, North Africa, Italy and the Netherlands, but inherit the Venetian maritime routes and reputation Tuscany. In 1615, a Manoel Carvalho, most likely the family from which a dynasty of rabbis and doctors Leghorn Merchants in Tunis organized a circuit Maritime Rotterdam, Tunis, Venice, Alexandria. Livorno will soon become the main center of Mediterranean origin dealers-new Christian, unseating Venice. In the early eighteenth century, moreover, the Doges of sending a proud Serene Massari real petition to the Ebro Nazione Livorno to encourage them to settle in their town, so, they said, of ravivare it nostro commercio estenuato . So these men of the Nation, as they are called in Europe, they fill in Islamic countries based on the old Venice and Florence.
It would be wrong to believe that these New Christians have emerged as their fellow Tunisians fell from Mars. North African Jews for the Iberian Jews are not strangers. Every great seller Tunisian or Algerian was once the trip from Valencia, Seville or the Balearics. It still existed in Toledo in 1492 and Hayat, of Zerah, of the tailgate. Many of the "Portuguese" have made a step, either in Oran, either in the Portuguese strongholds in Morocco. They were encouraged - or sometimes forced - to go there because their knowledge of Arabic is useful. Early in the sixteenth century we see in these places Moroccans, Darmon, Pariente, Levy, Carilho, Caçuto, families will be found in Tunis from the seventeenth to nineteenth century, all that practicing Arabic Portuguese merchants were never abandoned more than a century after the reconquista . It can be argued that the Portuguese arrived in Livorno the seventeenth century in Tunis does not mean the invasion of Italy in North African society, but one of many recycling Iberian she has known.
If these Portuguese Livorno so willingly opened in Tunis, from 1615, permanent or temporary counters is that they now have many powerful connections. Not only deys are supportive of new-Christians as the Sultans of Constantinople, but in Tunis since 1609 has become a major English city. The Dey Othman, indeed, and it is politics La Porte, gave asylum to tens of thousands of English Moriscos expelled by Philip III. He has granted important privileges. Eight out of ten of the trustees of corporations, amine are Moors - they say "Andalusian". The amine chechias always Andalusian, is President of the Commercial Court. This significant minority is the elite of society Tunis. The old city of Tunis retains its magnificent palaces built. These "Andalusians" are mostly of English North for generations have lost the use of Arabic, and continue for at least a century and a half to speak and write English. This explains why some large retailers based in Tunis Livorno have preferred English, which is also their cultural language, preferably in Portuguese vernacular and Administrative Livorno itself. They only use the Portuguese in their correspondence with Livorno.
NOTE is called "New Christian" Jews converted to Christianity willingly or as often forcibly, and suspected of continuing to practice Judaism. The Moriscos French "Moriscos" were
English Muslims forcibly converted and remained overwhelmingly faithful to Islam. Their deportation had been postponed under pressure from owners of large agricultural estates which they formed the bulk of the workforce. Their expulsion was finally consumed by Philip III in 1609. Tens of thousands took refuge in Tunisia, others in the Languedoc where they melted into mass, a phenomenon explained by the absence of persecution and inquisition .
These Livornese their coreligionists mean "traders" just as the Christians call "trading people" have influenced at least the Tunisian Jewish elites? Sure. But linguistically they broadcast is English rather than Italian. The latter is used in the notarial acts done by the Consulate of France, thanks to the regime of capitulations which the Jews called "frank" was profitable, but when it acts under private seal, even at the end of the eighteenth century we see merchants and Tunisian Leghorn used together English. The influence is not unilateral. First there are the reports denominational. The first new-arrived in Tuscany Christians are not circumcised. Circumcision former Christians in Christian lands is perilous. Tuscan complacent officials advise the newcomers: so you will be circumcised in Tunis. And are organized round trips Pisa-Livorno-Tunis where it takes a city missionary nature. Later when Livornese staying permanently in Tunis, they are forming their first Tunisian rabbis. This is true of rabbis and Abraham Sarfati Tzemach Taieb whose disciple Isaac Lumbroso will be the first rabbi of the new Portuguese community. It has sometimes described this separation as a schism, with a real coup. But things went peacefully. Rabbi Ouziel Elhaik asserts that the creation of an independent Portuguese Synagogue was accepted as a decision of God. Written agreements have been concluded. Moreover, in 1741, the death of Abraham Taieb, his disciple Rabbi Isaac Lumbroso becomes both communities, indicating that existed between the two groups at least a relationship, and that independence had Livornese nothing to do with Luther's schism.
Two different companies and relatives .-
Why two communities? Young recently asked the question almost angrily, for the anachronistic look of a generation that experienced the Holocaust and Israel, forgetting also that the emergence of Israeli society has not erased the historical and cultural differences. Each had his reasons. The few heads of families who opened Livorno to Tunis desk belonged to the great bourgeoisie, one of the oldest in Europe. In Rome already, the local community wanted to take advantage over new entrants, Spaniards, Catalans or Sicilians, authority taking the "jus soli" (jus soli ). These foreigners unwilling to undergo created several separate synagogues. In Tunis, the Tunisian community leaders invoked a "birthright" justifying, in their eyes "subjugation" of newcomers to their brethren already there. This claim had no chance of being accepted by Livornese who came to Tuscany to get an unprecedented social and dedication that appeared in the Mediterranean, in the words of Filippini, like a true power.
One might ask why the Tunisians had asserted a right of "subjugation" of the Portuguese, while earlier waves of immigration have never caused Iberian power struggle and even the rabbis English and Catalan had assumed leadership of the indigenous communities. They forget that in early Seventeenth century the situation was quite different. Far from bringing rabbis prestige, Livornese asked Tunisians to introduce them to Judaism to which they returned after sometimes a century or more. It is conceivable that these uncircumcised adult, sometimes old, even when they came to Africa to undergo circumcision, were seen as unclean people who could not be given power in the community. Haim Zafrani explained that the Moroccan Jews who received warmly exiles of 1290 and 1492 as to give them the direction of the community, received with suspicion and distance former Marranos of 1550 in 1600, refusing even to recognize their responsibilities priestly Cohen.
Tunis We have seen that this separation does not prevent cooperation theological. The works of Rabbi Isaac Lumbroso Leghorn, judge of the two communities were printed after his death in 1768 by his former disciple Yeshua Tanugi Cohen. In the nineteenth century it came to the two rabbinical courts to sit together to decide a dispute involving two litigants Tunisian brothers Nataf, an event that should not be foreign to the fact that a branch Family Nataf was established in Livorno. Finally, on the eve of the Protectorate, synagogues Livornese Tunis hosted crowds of Tunisians in harmony.
The separation did not prevent commercial collaboration. In a contract signed between David Italian Montel Livorno and a group of merchants Leghorn and Tunisia in Tunis, April 15, 1776, Montel agent has not developed a Livornese, but a Tunisian, "he Signore Eliau Attal. Among the merchants in this operation associated export of hides there are many Livorno but Salom Bizis Joseph Coen Zardi, and Samuel of Ioseph Semama Mareh Salom. From 1743, moreover, there is a Hugs (Bessis) among the notables of Livorno, director of a charity. In another contract of August 25, 1779 involved the same parties. This time it is a contract written in English and translated into Italian. The Tunisian players, except the attorney Attal, are 4 to 19. Apparently they understand the English language at that time still prevalent in Tunis, in Livorno and Andalusians, two categories with which the great Jewish merchants were necessarily Tunisian contacts. A Tunis again April 15, 1782 a partnership agreement rose in English between family members and Enriches Franchetti and other Livornese (Coen de Lara, Nunes, Kaiki - Haik-). The contract is translated into Italian by Jacob Spinosa, Livorno, Tunis, which may suggest that Livornese Tunis used more English than Italian.
influence on Tunisia in Tunis and Livorno Livorno is striking in all cases on a gastronomic from the seventeenth century. In 1650 found in bills of lading for ships bound for Livorno mention of shipments bags or barrels of couscous from North African ports. It is true that this dish was at least known in Andalusia in the twelfth century. There is also a specific name, English and Portuguese: acuzcuzù, now that both Livorno in Livorno, Tunis: cuscussù. It is also likely that the dish was already adopted during stays in other regions of the Maghreb, especially Morocco. Anyway this dish with a few others, is still cooked in Livorno, despite the extinction of most of the old families.
Only the late eighteenth century that Livornese Tunis begin to identify with Italy. My feeling is that one of the causes of the predominance of Italian is the blurring of the Iberian languages in Livorno itself, but also that the Arabization of Moorish Andalusia has gradually marginalized English in Tunis. Emotionally there is the fact that the national idea began to emerge in Italy, with a progress among the Jews of new ideas and a sense of approaching the universalist other Tuscans and Italians. The breakthrough of Freemasonry in Tunis and Livorno Livorno is hard to reconcile with a retreat community. If this enthusiasm to the masonry has been fought vigorously by the Tunisian rabbis, it was because it could contaminate their own group, which was already a form of Italian influence. Because at the same time begins a beginning of modernization of Tunisian Jewish merchants, with their arrival in international trade. This development is economically out of Africa in two directions which will mingle closely with Livorno Livorno and Marseille. At Livorno, the many North African traders are taking place "wobble" that is to say get their integration into the Ebro Nazione Tuscan and nationality. That nationality is lost after two years of absence, and elsewhere, returned to Tunis, the Tunisian origin are claimed by their community so that, contrary to what was believed, there is little recruitment to Livorno Tunis itself. Junes and family, French Algerian established in Livorno. Angiolo Junes, established in Tunis, begins with registration in Livorno, but probably because it is claimed the Tunisian community, so in 1875 we see delegation chairman Tunisian Committee for Building Schools for the IAU. However, the Junes are allies of several large families of Livornese Tunis, Guttières, Santillana, Levy, Cittanova who married sisters Angiolo. There is another way to become Livornese: it is moving to Marseille. Marseille was until the late eighteenth century, forbidden to Jews. But the privilege accorded to the Portuguese allows Livorno (Leghorn and Tunis) to create a community of Portuguese. The statutes provide explicit reference to the use of Livorno, and adoption of English as a language community. The Livornese Marseille, same as those of Livorno, have a political-ethnic and integrate not only widely Comtadins, who get well, thanks to a passport from Leghorn, for landing at Marseilles, but North Africans, mostly from Tunisia, and the Gibraltarians.
This breakthrough of North Africans in Europe accompanied by intermarriage, much more frequent than in Tunis. If later in Tunis things moving are the representatives of these families "livournisées" by those who stay in Marseille and Livorno initiate such marriages. The Westernization of the Jewish bourgeoisie Tunisian and running, so that disputes inter harden curiously. Is there an explanation as tax, the desire among the poorest group and more to better share resources? It is also the fact What appears most clearly from these European experiences, the prestige of Livornese which is mingled with Livorno and Marseille, but are more closed in Tunis. The "livournisés" revert Tunisians, because their group's claims, but he no longer accept segregation. The great ambition of merging the two communities is a strong desire to erase any social difference between the new bourgeoisie and the old. The trend is even in the middle class. One sees the parents of a young girl pouting Slama union of their daughter with a Smadja, because the parents promised would be "very backward, very Tunisian" (Annie Goldman: Daughters of Mordecai). As this movement coincides with the Italianate Livornese, it is now fashionable to s'italianiser. That is simultaneously grand and burgesses Livornese Tunisian s'italianisent the early nineteenth century. Contrary to what has sometimes been argued, these are not new immigrants that trigger Italianization. It began in Tunis at the same time as Livorno. This is the French Revolution that awakened the Italian nationalism on both sides of the sea will be sensitive Jews more than others because the food in Italy was an unbearable regression. The links have remained very close with Livorno, because migration flows in both directions remained very active.
Italian influence first hand Tunisians Livorno and Marseille returned to Tunis. A little known fact is the great cultural importance of home in Tuscany. The Livorno, since the charter of 1593 gave them the explicit right, employ Christian servants and nurses and Tuscany. Thus for children great Jewish families who adopt this practice Tunisian deemed fashionable, mother tongue is Italian. Paul Sebag told me his own case. Coming from a notable family Tunisian Jewish, he has an Italian speaking during his early childhood, raised by the nanny that her mother was born Attal, had been engaging in Livorno, where a branch of Attal was still alive. But the use even won subsequently the Sicilian bourgeoisie. My friend Adrian Salmieri, historian Sicilians Tunisia, told me himself that, like Livorno, he was raised by a maid Tuscany.
this Italian insider was succeeded shortly before an Italian protectorate mass with the arrival of large numbers of southern Italians, Sicilians, Calabrese and Sardis. These poor immigrants speak only their local dialect. They are quick to Arabic, but they will be made Italianization Livornese suddenly promoted to the role of intellectual and bourgeois elite of an entire Christian people. While the Protectorate primer quickly francization of Tunisian Jewish elites, but Tunis is a big Italian city. Italian is necessary to understanding the plumber, carpenter, fishmonger, the housekeeper. In regions such as the colonization of Sicily Cap Bon, Jews alongside the Italians, like hiring supervisors or managers, or working with them. This cultural pluralism will, in the eyes of the Fernand Braudel charm of Tunis: "I made a stop in Tunis, the city north African, Mediterranean, Levantine already, I preferred to all others ... Italy and France while quarreling, had grafted onto an old legacy most city joyful, amazing and heady that I have ever known (...) Poetry, light, joy to the table (....) frantic fun of the sea (...) The Mediterranean is, for me, a mixture (. ..) Tunis I liked: a mix. "
This pluralism would not have been possible without the presence of the old bourgeoisie and Livorno grown gradually renewed since the late eighteenth century. Because since then new families who settled in Tunis there were relatives already there. This climate could not be explained further by ignoring the Tunisian Jewish elites had long since mingled with the elite Livornese in reciprocal influences and fruitful. But national trends were divided among themselves in Livornese French group, but powerful minority, and Italian, very majority. The social and cultural Livornese Italian hospitals, schools, newspapers, make them indispensable to the Italian presence, but would provoke hostility against them French. Conventions French-Italian-Tunisian of 1896 would consolidate the power of elites by devoting Livornese Italian cultural autonomy, professional freedom and the security of nationality jus sanguinis. Italy Dreyfusard a curry in a Tunisian Jewish sympathies subject to fallout from the Algerian anti-Semitism. But Mussolini's Italy was cruelly perverted inheritance of the Renaissance humanist. From 1938 the story was going to merge the two communities in France. The administrative and political aspect, the dissolution of the Portuguese community in 1944, would not be without injury, because the Jews more than any other experience with the memory, and also by the discriminatory aspect: the Jews of Italian citizenship is were denied any role within the community merged. Intolerance smote all the religious groups: Italian Catholics were forbidden their specific procession of 15 August of the Madonna di Trapani. They should now practice their religion to the French. He is only eighteen years later all Jews of Tunisia prevailed in France from Italy, and in their sightseeing in Italy found a part of themselves.
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