Minhag Italia

Variations of Jewishness in the Nineteenth Century Through the Prism of Italian Prayer Books. A Digital Analysis

Dr. Alessandro Grazi – Research Associate, Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz.

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The lecture will delineate the main traits of an ongoing research project on Italian Jewish prayer books printed in the long Nineteenth Century.

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The aim of this project is to carry out a digital and conceptual analysis of nineteenth-century Italian prayer books (Siddurim and Mahzorim), with the purpose of utilizing them as objects of historical inquiry. The tools used to carry out this analysis consist of an inventory, digitization, and transcription of these prayer books with HTR software, in order to enable a digital text analysis. Prayer books encompass every aspect of Jewish life, from every day prayers to the special occasions of the High Holidays. For this reason, they are the most frequently printed books in Judaism. In spite of their prominence in Jewish life, they have received insufficient academic attention, because they have been considered as stable factors, whose dynamics would be unworthy of analysis. Indeed, it is true that prayer books maintained a certain uniformity in space and time, but the small changes of the different editions can actually represent substantial changes in the political and cultural (self)perception of a specific Jewry, in a specific place and time.

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The digital text analysis will be used to single out and address exactly these variations, with the purpose of answering the following questions: through the prism of the prayer book, can we challenge essential categories in the field of Jewish Studies, such as Orthodoxy and Reform? Can we establish changing patterns relating to Siddurim and Mahzorim as religious/sacred objects over time? How do prayer books attest to the construction of their owners' Jewish identities?

‍

Variations of Jewishness in the Nineteenth Century Through the Prism of Italian Prayer Books. A Digital Analysis

Dr. Alessandro Grazi – Research Associate, Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz.

‍

The lecture will delineate the main traits of an ongoing research project on Italian Jewish prayer books printed in the long Nineteenth Century.

The aim of this project is to carry out a digital and conceptual analysis of nineteenth-century Italian prayer books (Siddurim and Mahzorim), with the purpose of utilizing them as objects of historical inquiry. The tools used to carry out this analysis consist of an inventory, digitization, and transcription of these prayer books with HTR software, in order to enable a digital text analysis. Prayer books encompass every aspect of Jewish life, from every day prayers to the special occasions of the High Holidays. For this reason, they are the most frequently printed books in Judaism. In spite of their prominence in Jewish life, they have received insufficient academic attention, because they have been considered as stable factors, whose dynamics would be unworthy of analysis. Indeed, it is true that prayer books maintained a certain uniformity in space and time, but the small changes of the different editions can actually represent substantial changes in the political and cultural (self)perception of a specific Jewry, in a specific place and time.

The digital text analysis will be used to single out and address exactly these variations, with the purpose of answering the following questions: through the prism of the prayer book, can we challenge essential categories in the field of Jewish Studies, such as Orthodoxy and Reform? Can we establish changing patterns relating to Siddurim and Mahzorim as religious/sacred objects over time? How do prayer books attest to the construction of their owners' Jewish identities?

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